1 
















UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



■ 



/ y " <j t^p 



THE BIBLE 



THE CLASSICS. 



BY THE 



RIGHT REVEREND WILLIAM MEADE, 

BISHOr OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOr-Al CHURCH 
OF VIRGINIA. 



" Study the Sacred Scriptures : they have God for their Author, salvation for their end, 
and truth without any mixture of error for their matter." — John Locks. 



NEW YORK: 
ROBERT CARTER k BROTHERS. 

No. 530 BROADWAY. 
1SG1. 

^^p? or ^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, 

BY THE ET. REV. WILLIAM MEADE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern Dis- 
trict of New York. 



NEW YORK : 
PRINTED BY EDWARD O. JENKINS, 
20 NORTH WILLIAM ST. 



PREFACE. 



Whex a youth at school, studying the Greek and Latin 
poets, I was, as doubtless other youths are, much struck 
■with the accounts there given of the heathen gods and god- 
desses; of their visits to the earth and intercourse with 
mortals ; of the miracles ascribed to them ; and especially 
of their frequent assumption of the human form. The 
teacher made me understand all the allusions to these 
things by referring to the notes, and by carefully studying 
Took/s '• Pantheon," in which were many very shocking 
things which it could be wished were kept from the eyes 
of the young. Having been instructed in the Sacred Scrip- 
tures from a child, and continually hearing or reading the 
same, at home or in church, I could not but observe the 
strong resemblance between some of these fables in the 
ancient poets, and certain things in the Old and New Testa- 
ments, — such as the first formation of man ; the garden of 
Eden ; God's visits to that place ; the long lives of men 
before the flood ; the flood itself; the mission of angels 
to men afterwards ; and, above all, the incarnation of 



4 



PREFACE. 



Christ, and the miracles wrought by himself and his 
apostles. 

While noticing this resemblance, I well remember that 
unbelieving thoughts would sometimes enter my mind, in 
opposition to the faith in which I had been trained, and 
that I was tempted to say, perhaps all these marvellous 
things in the Bible and in the heathen mythology are 
alike false. To the blessing of Grod on a religious educa- 
tion I owe it, that this temptation was not more effectual, 
and that the impression was not an abiding one, as I fear 
has been the case with thousands of the young who have 
not enjoyed the same religious advantages, and even with 
some who have been instructed in the scriptures of truth. 

When it pleased God more deeply to affect my heart 
with the truth and importance of our holy religion, and I 
saw how many of the classically educated youth of our 
land were disposed to regard alike the most sacred truths 
of the Bible and the wild fables of pagan writers, and 
how much impurity was learnt from the latter, I began to 
dread the effects of a classical education, and to think that 
more harm than good resulted therefrom. But on continu- 
ing and enlarging my course of reading with a view to 
the ministry, and carefully examining the Sacred Scriptures, 
and the heathen poets and mythologists, my mind was 
relieved of this apprehension, and I became satisfied that a 
candid study and comparison of the same with the Bible 
would produce quite a different result. All my subsequent 
examinations of this subject have only confirmed me in 



PREFACE. 



5 



the conviction, that one of the strongest arguments in favor 
of all that seems marvellous in the Bible may be drawn 
from the remarkable resemblance between the marvellous 
in it and the marvellous in the religious history and sys- 
tems of the ancient heathen world ; much of which is to 
be seen, even at the present day, in the idolatries of the 
yet unchristianized world. 

There is no sentiment more generally admitted, than 
that " the universal consent of mankind points to truth," 
if not with an unerring hand in every particular, yet with 
sufficient clearness to establish all great truths.* If, not- 
withstanding great perversions and corruptions, the various 
religions of earth point to some early facts common to 
them all, we have only to examine diligently where the 
first and true account is to be found, and then show the 
origin and history of all departures from the same. But 
this can only be done by those who have the learning and 
the leisure for it. 

The youth in our schools, with only the heathen poets 
and the notes on the same, and some classical dictionary, 
are utterly incompetent to judge rightly on this subject. 
Their minds will only be overwhelmed by the multitude 
of contradictory and ridiculous stories about the gods, and 
either disgust, contempt, or scepticism, as to all among men 
claiming to be divine, will be the result. Who can ques- 
tion the importance of some work which shall bring within 
a moderate compass a comparative view of the leading 

• " Quod ab omnibus, ubiquc ct semper crcditum eat pro veritute bubendum." 



6 



PREFACE. 



principles and facts of the Bible, and of all the false relig- 
ions of earth, showing that they had the same origin, but 
how, under the latter, men gradually "turned the truth of 
God into a lie," and came " to worship the creature more 
than the Creator," and at length were given up by God to 
all the abominations which abound in the heathen world. 

The present volume is an humble attempt at such a 
work ; and if the author of it shall only succeed in provok- 
ing some one, more competent to the task, to execute it in 
a better manner, he will rejoice in the honor and privilege 
of having contributed thus much to what he has long con- 
sidered as a most important desideratum in the conduct of a 
classical education. It is now more than forty years since 
he has been engaged in the fruitless effort to persuade some 
one, either in this or our mother country, to undertake what 
he felt himself incompetent to execute in a manner at all 
worthy of its great importance. During that time he has 
adverted to it through the press, and spoken and written 
to learned and pious men urging the subject upon their 
attention, but in vain. He has long endeavored to find 
out some work already in use, in the schools of England 
and America, which had been prepared for this purpose, 
but without success. When in England, twenty years 
since, he made a special visit to the Eev. Mr. Faber, 
who has written so learnedly and voluminously on the 
subject, with a view to persuade him to condense into a 
small volume, for the use of schools, the substance of what 
he had published to the world ; but the years and increas- 



PREFACE. 



7 



ing infirmities of that venerable man and most useful 
author, forbade the attempt. 

Within the last few years, another fruitless effort has 
been made, by the help of two of the first scholars and 
most laborious authors in England, to find some book, 
already published and in use, which might answer the 
object which I have so long endeavored to accomplish. 
Thus disappointed in all my efforts at help from others, 
and feeling that old age and infirmities might soon unfit 
me even for the attempt at something which I have so 
long deemed important, I hope that my presumption may 
not seem greater than my zeal if I make an humble ex- 
periment myself. It will at once be perceived that I am 
only using the labors of others in compiling a guide for 
the young who are travelling the dangerous road of a classi- 
cal education. Nor have I had in view the young of one 
sex only. The greater attention now paid to the education 
of the female sex, even to the extent of embracing, in 
many instances, the Greek and Latin classics, — especially 
the latter, — makes it proper to have reference to them in 
any work of this kind. 

I have considered this, and in the execution of my task 
have endeavored to exclude every thing which might in 
the slightest degree offend against female purity and deli- 
cacy, though in so doing some things must be more lightly 
touched than the subject seems to require.* It will be seen 

* Luther was atone time charged with opposition to the study of the classics, 
but indignantly repelled the imputation. Julian the Apostate proposed to ban- 



8 



PREFACE. 



that I have generally abstained even from the use of Latin 
quotations, and altogether from the Greek, preferring the 
English to either. In doing this I had reference to a class 
of readers who are unacquainted with those languages, 
but to whom I desire to render my book interesting and 
instructive. For the disuse of the Greek I ought to 
assign another reason, nor be ashamed to do it, when I 
have so high an example as the great and good Sir Mat- 
thew Hale. In the preface to his excellent work " On the 
Primitive Origination of Mankind," he apologizes to the 
reader for not using the Greek tongue in his quotations 
from ancient Greek authors, saying, "I was a better Gre- 
cian in the sixteenth than in the sixty-sixth year of my 
life." I can speak in like manner, only that I may say 
" I was a better Grecian in my sixteenth year at school, 
than in my seventy-second in the study." But my book 
will suit more readers in consequence of my having nearly 
forgotten something which I once learned. Indeed, it is 
not for the learned antiquarian and scholar that I write, but 
for those of either sex, and of all ages, whether studying 

ish the works of the poets and mythologists from his kingdom, saying that the 
defenders of Christianity drew many of their arguments from the pagan writers, 
adducing their traditions in support of Bible facts and doctrines. Some are, 
even at this day, unwilling to expurgate any of the classics, lest anything should 
be lost which might furnish proof of the superior excellency of the morality of 
the Bible. They would even retain the most obscene and licentious passages in 
the poets, as proofs of the deep corruptions of the heathen world, and the 
greater purity of our system. That such testimonies should be preserved and 
used is very proper, and will doubtless be done, but whether the youth of 
either sex should be thus familiarized with vice in connection with the charms 
of poetry, is quite a different question. 



PREFACE. 



9 



the classics, or desiring to be informed of some things 
which are common to them and to the Holy Scriptures. I 
may, therefore, in sending forth this work, speak somewhat 
in the words of the exiled Ovid, in his " Liber Tristium," 
or, " Book of Sad Letters from Pontus :" 

" Ergo, care liber timida circnmspice mente, 
Et satis a media sit tibi plebe legi." 

" Wherefore, dear book, around thee look with timid mind, 
And be content if read by those of lesser kind." 

In the hope that this humble effort may either be itself 
useful, or lead to something which may be so, I commend 
it to the blessing of God and the kindness and candor of 
the reader. 

I invite friendly suggestions for its improvement, should 
it appear likely to answer, in any measure, the object of 
the author. To one and all I would say, as to any and 
every thing contained in it, 

" Si quid novisti rectius 
Candidas imperti— si non ; his utere mecum." 

" If aught thou better knowest, in candor tell ; 
If not, use this with rnc." 

One word only in conclusion. The most pleasing thought 
associated in my mind with the following pages, (on which 
I have bestowed much labor, not to make them appear 
learned, but be useful,) is, that they may furnish interesting 
and edifying reading to the family circle on a winter's 



r 



10 PREFACE. 

evening ; that they may also be taken up in private, and 
read by those of either sex and of all ages, who are anx- 
ious for information, presented in fewest words, and in the 
plainest manner, on those important questions touching 
Grod, as exhibited in the holy Trinity — the creation of the 
world and of man — the deluge — the unity of the human 
race — the rise and progress of idolatry — and others con- 
nected with these, which are now the subjects of so much 
discussion among the learned, and which sceptics and infi- 
dels seek to use against our blessed religion, as set forth in 
the Sacred Scriptures. 

Such being my object, I commend this humble effort to 
the divine blessing.* 

WILLIAM MEADE, 
Bishop of the P. E, C, of Virginia. 

* Whether it might not be profitably used in classic schools, and especially 
in those of a higher grade, and be of some service to the young, even in col- 
leges, until something better of the same kind is furnished, must be left to the 
decision of those best qualified to judge. 



LIST OF 



AUTHORS 



REFERRED TO. 



I will not disguise the fact that in compiling this book I have often 
had in my view a large portion of my brethren in the ministry, who 
ought to be well-grounded in the subjects discussed in it, but who 
cannot be supposed to have access to many of the books which treat 
of them. For their benefit, and in order to inspire some confidence 
in the accuracy of my statements, I subjoin a list of the authors which 
I have consulted during the preparation of this book. I have not 
generally referred to the page and volume of the passages quoted, 
because these refer to other more ancient writers to whom neither I 
nor my readers have access. 

The following is the list of authors recommended to my brethren, 
as they may have opportunity or inclination to examine them : 

George Stanley Fabcr's works on the Pagan Mythology, :> vols, quarto; 
Ilosa Mo>aic;e. "J vol-., octavo ; MvMcrics of the Cabin, 9 voK octavo; 
On Sacrifice, 1 vol. octavo; On the Three Dispensations, 2 vols, octa- 
vo; Bryant's work on Mythology, vols, octavo; Mayo, 4 vols, octa- 
vo; 1st and 2d volumes of Stackhouse's History of the Biblo ; 
Prideaux's and Shuckford's Connections, in several volumes, octavo; 
Prichard's Researches, 6 vols, octavo ; Harcourt on the Deluge, 2 
vol-, octavo; Asiatic Researches, 12 vols, octavo ; Stillingfleet's Ori- 
gines Sacno, 1 vol. folio ; Sir Matthew Hale's Primitive Origination 
of Mankind, 1 vol. folio ; Warburton'fl Divine Legation of Moses, 4 
vols.; Oudworth's Intellectual System, one large volume; I.eland on 
the Advantages of Revelation, 2 vols, octavo ; Schoolcraft's Ameri- 
can Aborigines, C vols, folio, published by Congress; Maury's Phys- 
ical Geography of the Sea, 1 vol. octavo ; Guyot's Karth and Man; 
Cabell on the Unity of the Human Pace, 1 vol.: llardwic's Christ 



12 



LIST OF AUTHOES EEFEKEED TO. 



and other Masters, 4 vols, octavo ; Muir's Christianity and Hindoo- 
ism, 1 vol. octavo; Cardinal Wiseman's Science and Eevelation, 2 
vols, duodecimo ; Archer Butler's Lectures on Ancient Philosophy ; 
Prescott's Histories of Mexico and Peru ; Eivero and Pthudi on 
Peru, edited by Dr. Hawkes ; Lares and Penates, by Barker, 1 vol. 
octavo ; Egypt, by Wilkinson, 1 vol. duodecimo ; Bishop Horseley's 
Treatise on the Sibylline Books ; Grey's Key to the Classics, 2 vols, 
octavo ; Brook's Ovid, with notes ; Sandys' Ovid, with notes, 1 vol. 
folio ; Fairbanks' Typology, 2 vols, octavo ; Bawlinson's Herodotus, 
4 vols, octavo ; Eawlinson's Historical Evidences, 1 vol. duodecimo ; 
Trench's Hulsean Lectures, 1 vol. duodecimo ; Faber's Many Man- 
sions, 1 vol. octavo ; Leland's Deistical Writers, 2 vols, octavo ; Pro- 
fessor Lewis' Divine Human, 1 vol. ; His Six Days of Creation ; 
His Bible and Science ; Guyot's Earth and Man ; Labagh's Glory of 
Woman ; Turnbull's Christ in History ; Hitchcock's Religion of 
Geology, 1 vol. duodecimo ; Hugh Miller's Works ; Pendleton's 
Science a Witness to the Bible ; Muller on Eumenides ; The Stars 
and the Angels, anonymous ; The True Glory of Woman, by Har- 
baugh, 1 vol. duodecimo. Beside these, many articles in different 
Quarterlies of our country. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

CHANNELS THBOTTGH WHICn THE EAELT IIISTOEY OF MAN HAS OOME 

DOWN. 

CHAPTER Lt 

ON GOD, TnE SELF-EXISTENT CREATOR OF THE WORLD, AND OF ALL 
THINGS THEREIN. 

CHAPTER III. 

ON CREATION. 

CHAPTER IV. 

ON THE CREATION OF MAN. — PART I. 

CHAPTER V. 

ON THE CREATION OF MAN. — PART II. 

CHAPTKK VI. 

OS THE INTIMATIONS OF THE TRINITY AT THE FORMATION OP MAN. 

CHAPTER VII. 

ON THE TEMITATION BT THE DEVIL IN THE FORM OF A SERPENT. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 



14 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IX. 

ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL AND THE EESUEEEOTION OF THE 

BODY. 

CHAPTER X. 

THE DEATH OF ABEL AND THE INSTITUTION OF SAOEIFIOES. 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE CHEEUBIM OF THE GAEDEN OF EDEN. 

CHAPTER XII. 

PEOGEESS OF CORRUPTION. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

ON THE EISE AND PEOGEESS OF IDOLATET. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

ON THE DELUGE. 

CHAPTER XV. 

ON THE DELUGE. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

ON THE DELUGE. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE DISPEESION FEOM BABEL, AND THE DIVISION OF THE EAETH AMONG 
THE DESCENDANTS OF NOAH. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS AND WORSHIP OF THE DISPEESED IN ASIA. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE RELIGION OF THE DISPERSED IN EUROPE. 



i 



CONTEXTS. 



15 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE RELIGION OF THE DISPERSED IN AFRICA. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

ON THE CANAAXITES AND ANIMAL SACRIFICES. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

ON THE RELIGIONS OF AMERICA. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

ON THE RELIGION OF MEXICO AND PERU. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

ON THE PAGAN MYSTERIES. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

ON THE PHILOSOPHERS OF GREECE AND ROME. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

ON PLUTARCH AND OTHER PHILOSOPHERS. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

EFFECT OF THE PHILOSOPHY AND IDOLATRY OF TnE HEATHEN ON THE 
MORALS OF THE ANCIENTS. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

ON nOMER — TUB ILIAD, ODYSSEY, AND OTHER POEMS. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

ON IIESIOD AND CALLIMACUT/8. 

CHAPTER XXX. 

ON THE THEOLOGY OF AESCHYLUS AND SOPHOCLES. 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

ON OVID'S TRIST1CM AND METAMORPHOSES. 



16 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 
on ovid's metamorphoses. 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 
on virgil's georgios and ^eneid. 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

ON HORAOE, JUVENAL, AND PERSIUS. 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

ON THE PROPER ESTIMATE OF THE PAGAN MYTHOLOGY, AND ON THE 
SALV ABILITY OF THE HEATHEN. 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

ON THE QUESTION "WHETHER THE SAVAGE OR THE CIVILIZED STATE 
IS THE ORIGINAL AND NATURAL STATE OF MAN. 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

ON THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

ON THE HEATHEN ORACLES. 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

ON THE SUPERIORITY OF THE BIBLE TO ALL OTHER BOOKS. 

CHAPTER XL. 

CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Although tlie general character of this work is to be 
inferred from the Preface and Table of Contents, it may 
yet be "well to introduce it by some further observations 
on what will form its main object. That object will be 
to establish and recommend the religion of Christ, not 
only as distinguished from and superior to all other sys- 
tems, but as lying at the foundation of whatever is true 
in every other. There is much of truth in the title of an 
old volume called " Christianity as Old as Creation," 
though the work itself is full of falsehood. In that title 
given to our Lord, "The Lamb slain from the foundation 
of the world," we have the origin of all the sacriticial 
offerings with which the world has so long abounded. 
All these are only symbolical and imitative of that in 
which the essence of all true religion consists. Not only 
the scriptures declare, but all humanity has ever cried 
out, that "in blood is the atonement;" that without " shed- 
ding of blood there can he no remission of sins ;" but the 
scriptures tell us plainly, what other traditions only some- 
timee hint at, that it must be nobler blood than that of 
bulls and goats, or even of ordinary men, which is re- 
quired for the atonement of sin. A divine personage 
imi.-t combine with the human, by being born of a 
woman — must unite the fulness of the Godhead with the 
2 



18 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



truth of our mortal nature— be very God and very man, 
and pour out his human life and human blood for our 
sakes. If Christianity be not this, it is nothing but a 
cunningly devised fable, imposed on men, and utterly 
worthless. If it be this, then, large as is the volume 
which contains our religion, this must be its chief theme. 
Accordingly, we find the Old Testament declared to be a 
schoolmaster to bring us to Christ ; as the alpha and 
omega — the beginning and the end — the all in all of 
God's word. When our Lord was on earth, he showed 
to his disciples how he was set forth in all the ancient 
scriptures. These are they, he would say, which testify 
of me. This was the main object, also, of the inspired 
apostles. But, it may be asked, is nothing of this mighty 
truth to be found in any other of the many traditions, 
monuments, or books, which have abounded in the world 
for so many thousand years of man's history ? There is 
much reason to believe, and many interesting facts to 
show, that such is the case. The true religion of that 
God, whose voice spake to our first parents in the gar- 
den of Eden, was certainly known to them and their chil- 
dren ; as certainly to Noah and his family, in whom the 
„ human race was renewed and put on further trial. It 
must, in its main features, have been known to their 
descendants, both before and after their dispersion from 
Babel. More or less of it must have been retained in the 
worship, and the traditions, and monuments, and writ- 
ings of the various families or nations which were scat- 
tered abroad through the earth, though gradually per- 
verted and corrupted by the sinfulness and ignorance of 
man. To bring forth the evidence of this in a manner 
best calculated to convince the reader, is the object of 
this book. 

If the union of the human and divine nature in the per- 
son of Christ, in order, by his sufferings and death and 



INTRODUCTION. 



19 



intercession, to reconcile man to his offended God, be 
the great theme of the Old and New Testaments, we 
must suppose that much of the same must have been 
spread ahroad through the earth by the descendants of 
Noah, and been transmitted from generation to genera- 
tion, however darkened and corrupted and turned into 
fable. The sinfulness and misery of man, calling for 
such a hope ; the law of God written on the hearts and 
consciences of men ; the religious instincts of humanity, 
for such there are, must have ever inclined them to cherish 
a religion like that of Christ. Such it is believed was 
the case. But while we must cherish and maintain this 
belief, let us guard against error, for much error is to be 
found in connexion with it. A great controversy exists, 
and has long existed, as to the amount of natural religion 
resulting from the instinct of man and the law written on 
his heart ; as to the piety of the heathen, growing out of 
the remainder of revealed or original truth yet to be 
found in their superstition. This controversy began with 
some of the fathers of the Christian church, especially 
those called the Platonic, who supposed that there was 
mora of divine truth in the philosophy and mythology 
of the pagan world, than it is sale to admit. Most inju- 
rious were the consequences of their error. In relation to 
natural religion independent of, if not contrary to re- 
waled, it was advocated to a most alarming extent in the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At the head of its 
defenders stood Lord Herbert, Baron of Sherbury, who 
wrote in thu early part of the seventeenth century, and 
maintained that there were certain great principles or 
articles of religion, live in number, written distinctly, by 
the hand of God, on the minds of all men, in every age 
and country, making up a system, which were universally 
received and not disputed. How contrary this to history 
I need not stop to declare. His Lordship's theory was 



20 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



well answered by different writers, as may be seen in 
Leland's view of deistical writers. The next eminent 
writer was the infidel Tindal, who wrote, in the early part 
of the last century, a popular and deceptious work, 
entitled " Christianity as old as Creation, or the Gospel a 
republication of the Law of Nature." In this he endeavors 
to show that there is nothing in Christianity which had 
not always been written on the minds of men. Dean 
Trench, in his Hulsean lectures, calls him " one of the 
ablest of the unhappy band of infidels." 

Of late years the discussion has been renewed and has 
assumed a more dangerous form. Some of the German 
writers (called Ideologists) have improved upon the Pla- 
tonic fathers, and found out so much of divine truth in 
the ancient philosophers and mythologists, and in their 
successors of the present day, that it matters little whether 
the gospel, in its fulness and purity, be preached to the 
heathen or not. They so magnify the amount of saving 
truth which may be found in all the perversions of 
religion, which prevail upon earth and in the deep 
recesses of the human mind, as to encourage the idea that 
all men may be saved by " the law or sect which they 
profess," if they be only sincere. 

It is our desire to seek for the truth on this important 
and deeply interesting subject, and to present it with 
candor to our readers. Many sound minds and honest 
hearts are engaged in its investigation ; and the inductive 
system, or that which reasons from well established facts, 
is faithfully used in the inquiry. The real character of 
all the various religious systems which are or have been 
among men, is carefully sought in all the monuments, 
traditions, and histories of the earth. 

How far Christ has been the desire of all nations ; 
how much there has been of what is called " the uncon- 
scious prophecy of Christ," in the groping after truth — 



INTRODUCTION. 



21 



the feeling after God — on the part of the philosophers 
and in the popular belief of the nations, is the inquiry. 

We are persuaded that there has been enough to form 
a most powerful argument for the truth of Christianity, 
as the revealed religion to the first parents of the human 
race, and as that which has been continued through the 
Patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian church to the present 
day. 

We are persuaded that either the human race was not 
created by God, according to the popular belief, or else 
that God did communicate religion to it. Frederick 
Newman, the infidel brother of the great Tractarian of 
England, says that " religion was created by the inward 
instincts of the soul, to be pruned and chastened by the 
sceptical understanding." Much do we prefer the opinion 
of Tertullian, one of the early fathers, who said that " the 
whole of Gentilism was either a distorted copy of pri- 
mordial truth, or else was actually derived from a perusal 
of the Old Testament scriptures." A portion of what 
was true in paganism was doubtless to be traced to both 
of these sources. At the time of the Reformation, some, 
l>'>rh of Romanists and Protestants, spoke too 6trongly of 
the amount of truth to be found in the ancient philoso- 
phers. A certain Romanist called the ancient philosophy 
" a tacit Christianity ;" and even Zuinglius spoke too favor- 
ably of some idolaters and philosophers. 

A much more careful and deeper search into the char- 
acter of the various philosophies and religions of mankind 
has of late years been made, by some of the most learned 
theologian- and scholars, the re-nit of which has been 
most favorable to the belief that the great doctrine of 
the incarnation and atonement is sustained by the gene- 
ral consent of mankind. 

Dean Treneh, in his laborious and interesting Ilnlsean 
lectures, says, " All men have been in one way or another 



22 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



asking for that gift (such as we have in Christ), or fancy- 
ing that they have gotten it, or mourning its departure, 
or providing substitutes for it." Speaking of man's near- 
ness to God in Paradise, he says : " Everywhere they had 
a tradition of a time when they were nearer to God than 
now, and a confident hope of a time when they should 
be brought nearer again." " No thoughtful student," he 
says, " of the past records of man can refuse to acknowl- 
edge that through all its history there has been the hope 
of a redemption from the evil which oppresses it ;" nor 
of this only, but that " this hope has continually linked 
itself on some single man ;" and again, that " this help 
must be in a person ; that only around a person could 
souls cluster." 

Elaborate and learned as the Hulsean lectures are, a 
work of more labor and learning has since appeared from 
the pen of the candid and judicious Charles Hardwic, 
M. A., Christian Advocate in the University of Cam- 
bridge, England. It is entitled " Christ and other Mas- 
ters," in four volumes ; being a most thorough examina- 
tion of all the religions of the earth, as they have been 
and now are. While evidently fearful of finding too 
many and close resemblances between the religion of the 
Bible and the corrupt perversions thereof, he nevertheless 
thus testifies to the proofs of a common and heavenly ori- 
gin. " The features of resemblance, few, dim, and frag- 
mentary though they be, should be welcomed as so many 
testimonies to the truth of revelation, as unconscious pro- 
phecies of heathendom, or else as portions of that spirit- 
ual heritage which men and tribes bore with them from 
the cradle of the human race." In opposition to the doc- 
trine that men have discovered and made a religion for 
themselves, he says, in discoursing of the Hindoos, that 
" Nearly all their writings, so far from advocating the no- 
tion that truth is self-evolved or a discovery of the human 



INTRODUCTION. 



23 



reason, recognize in God the only source of supernatural 
teaching ;" and so far from urging that the present age 
alone is in possession of such teaching, they proclaim their 
frequent obligation to the purer wisdom of antiquity, and 
to the "guidance of the sages who have delivered it unto 
us." They say that " truth was originally deposited with 
men, but gradually slumbered and was forgotten, and that 
the knowledge of it returns like a recollection." This, as 
we shall see hereafter, was the favorite doctrine of Plato. 

In regard to a Redeemer, Mr. Hardwic says, " Not- 
withstanding all the wayward tendencies of men, diverg- 
ing each in opposite ways from the principles of true 
religion, there was always in the heart of man a yearning 
after an external Saviour. There was always a presenti- 
ment that such a Saviour would eventually stoop down 
from heaven, and, by an act of grace and condescension, 
master all our deadliest foes, and reinstate us in our lost 
inheritance." What is this but the doctrine of the apos- 
tle a- t<> tin' "whole creation groaning in pain, waiting 
for the redemption." 

"This doctrine.'' says Hardwic, "was to the Hebrews, 
from the time of Abraham, 1 the pivot of their firmest 
hopes — the key to all their scriptures.' " Speaking of the 
Medo-lVr.-ians, among whom such tradition had lost all 
practical effect, he says, "Among these, as well as in the 
darkest depths of (rentilism, the echoes of primeval 
truths had lingered ages after they had lost all practical 
effect." 

Mr. Hardwic very emphatically dwells upon the fact, 
that in all the other religions there was a sad absence of 
any (h ep and ju-t views of sin, 1 1 < ■ 1 1 a> .lews and Chris- 
tians had, although they all admitted the fall of man, the 
eorifitence of sin, the need of sacrifice, and a restorer. 

Having adduced these testimonies from European 
writers, I should do injustice to our land if I did not 



24 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



mention one at least of the many valuable treatises of 
American divines, either in book or pamphlet form, which 
treat on this interesting theme. The Rev. Robert Turn- 
bull, D. D., has just edited the second edition of his "Christ 
in History," a book to be recommended for its deep research 
into the writings of ancient philosophers and mythologists, 
and for the striking manner in which he shows how all his- 
tory bears some testimony to Christ as the central idea in 
all the religions of the earth, however obscured and smoth- 
ered by the fancies and theories of men. Quoting the 
strong language of Shelley and Yinet, he says, that " His- 
tory, as a whole, is a successive revelation of God," and 
that " all the intractable and contradictory problems of 
philosophy find their solution in Christ." The result of 
his own researches is, that " God, manifested in some form, 
is the centre of all history, past, present, and to come." 
In the Prometheus of ^Eschylus he finds the half divine, 
half human sufferer and Saviour, the true friend of man, 
while Jupiter was the awful tyrant. Plato and other 
philosophers, he says, held to a divine manifestation, an 
emanating essence or deity, called logos, or wisdom, or 
reason, by which the world was created ; not a mere ab- 
straction, but a personality. As to the Hebrew doctrine, 
Philo Judeus, born a few years before Christ, and the 
greatest philosopher of the Jewish nation, maintained that 
some divine logos, or word, or reason, must intervene 
beween men and God in order that men might understand 
God. He it was whom the fathers called God of God, 
Light of Light, very God of very God, and which is in- 
corporated into the Christian creed. He it is whom the 
apostle calls " the brightness of the Father's glory, and 
the express image "of his person." He it is whom the 
ancient Jews called the Messiah, the Shiloh, who was to 
come — the Angel of the presence — the Divine presence- 
Emmanuel, God with us. This was the God of Abraham, 



INTRODUCTION. 



25 



Isaac, and Jacob, who so often appeared to them in the 
human form. God as the infinite Father could not be 
seen or known to finite man, except he became, in a 
sense, finite also, embodying himself in some material 
form, becoming the word, or voice, or image of God. This 
doctrine runs through all the ancient religions, however 
perverted. Thus in India, Yach, or speech, is the active 
power of Brahma. In Egypt, while Aman is the hidden 
god, Phtha is the god by whom he produces the world, 
the manifested god. In Persia, Ormazd the Good creates 
the world, by Ilonovu the word. A Chinese sage also 
teaches the creation of the world by the " primordial 
reason." The early fathers maintained that the ancient 
writers, whether poets or philosophers, derived their be- 
lief of the eternal word, or reason, by whom the worlds 
were created, either from the sacred scriptures or some 
original revelation. 

All men, it Beems, have ever been longing for an incar- 
nate God. Even pantheism, which supposes God clothes 
himself in every material object of nature, bears some tes- 
timony t'> this craving of humanity that God would con- 
descend to let himself down, and permit us to see him and 
feel something of him. Even rationalizing and sceptical 
men acknowledge that the human form is the fittest for the 
indwelling of the Deity, in order to convene with man and 
do him good. Wherefore, all the gods of the heathen 
were once men, or sometimes assumed the human form, 
and their images were the same. • 

All these things bear some testimony to what the scrip- 
tures teach concerning one born of a virgin, and who thus 
became ''Emmanuel, God with us" — a second Adam, but 
without sin as to his mortal nature, and vet the second 
person of the Godhead, as to his divine. 

It is impossible to conceive of a method by which God 
could so effectually draw the hearts of men unto himself, 



26 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



as that which was devised in embodying himself in the 
human form, going through all the stages of human life 
from infancy to age, and performing all the kind offices 
of humanity, enduring all the persecutions of the wicked, 
and at length suffering all the agonies of crucifixion. 
Well may we exclaim with a pious mystic : 

" The Lord of all things, in his humble birth, 
Makes mean the proud magnificence of earth ; 
The straw, the manger, and the mouldering wall, 
Eclipse its lustre, and I scorn it all. 

"All, all have lost the charms they once possessed; 
An infant God reigns sov'reign in my breast : 
From Bethlehem's bosom I no more will rove ; 
There dwells my Saviour, and there rests my love. 

" Thou art my bliss, the light by which I move ; 

In thee alone dwells all that I can love ; 

Upon my meanness, poverty, and guilt, 
, The trophy of thy glory shalt be built. 

" The more I love thee, I the more reprove 
A soul so lifeless and so slow to love ; 
Till, on the deluge of thy mercy toss'd, 
I plunge into the sea, and there am lost." 

— Madame Guion. 

The following testimony of the Rev. Mr. Cecil to the 
necessity of an incarnate God, will, I am sure, he accep- 
table to the reader. 

" A sick woman once 'said to me, ' Sir, I have no notion 
of God — I can form no notion of him. You talk to me 
of him, but I cannot get a single idea that seems to con- 
tain any thing.' ' But you know,' I said, ' how to con- 
ceive of Jesus Christ as a man. God comes down to you, 
in him, full of kindness and condescension.' 'Ah ! sir,' she 
replied, ' that gives me something to lay hold on. There 
I can rest. I understand God in his Son. And if God,' 



INTRODUCTION. 



27 



she added, ' is not intelligible out of Christ, much less is 
he amiable, though I ought to feel him to be so. He is 
an object of horror and aversion to me, corrupted as I am. 
I fear, I tremble, I resist, I hate, I rebel.' " 

The testimony of missionaries to the power of this great 
truth is also most weighty, and with one instance of it I 
close this introduction. The following is the account 
given of himself by the first convert in Greenland : 
" Brethren," said he, : ' I have been a heathen, and there- 
fore I know how heathen think. Once a preacher came 
to us and explained that there was a God. We answered, 
' Dost thou think us so ignorant as not to know that ? ' An- 
other preacher began to teach us, ' You must not lie, steal, 
or get drunk.' "We answered, 'Thou fool, dost thou think that 
we don't know that ? ' and so dismissed him. After that, 
one came to my hut and sat down by me. He spoke to me 
nearly as follows : ' I come to you in the name of the Lord 
of heaven and earth. He sends to let you know that he 
will make you happy, and deliver you from the misery in 
which you live at present. To this end he became a man, 
gave his life a ransom for man, and shed his blood for us.' 
I could imt forget hi- words. Even while I was asleep, I 
dreamed of that blood which Christ shed for us. I told 
this to the other Indians, and through the grace of God 
an awakening took place among us. I say, therefore, 
Brethren, preach Christ our Saviour, and his sufferings 
and death, if you would have your words gain entrance 
among the heathen." 

If Christianity be from heaven, and God sanctifies men 
through the truth, and it' there lie religions in>tiiiels in 
man, then must they he moved to action by the plain and 
faithful exhibition of this its great fact, far more than hy 
anything else. 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



CHAPTER I. 

ON THE CHANNELS THROUGH WHICH THE EARLY HISTORY OF MAN 
HAS COME DOWN TO US. 

If, as we believe, God made our first parents accord- 
ing to the account given to us in the scriptures, we must 
suppose that he himself communicated the knowledge 
of this fact to them, together with such information and 
instruction as were necessary for the preservation of life, 
and for their comfort and improvement on earth. Far 
be it from us to believe that he should have formed such 
a being as man, and then cast him out, ignorant and 
speechless, to grope his way to knowledge in such a soli- 
tude as was all around him. Superior as man is to all 
other brings on earth, and appointed Lord of all, yet, in 
his infancy, and without nursing care and instruction, he 
is the most ignorant and helpless of all. 

In order to intercourse with his Maker, and other 
beings who should be born unto him, there must be some 
power of speech and the use of words. Wherefore, we 
find (Jod not only speaking to our first parents, and they 
r< plying to him, but bringing all the animals to Adam, 
that he might give them appropriate names ; for. as words 
are representatives of things, we may reasonably suppose 
there was some correspondence between the names given 
to the animals and the qualities of the same. Bishop 



30 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Stillingfleet well remarks : " The imposition of names be- 
longs not to every one, but only to him who hath a full 
prospect of their several natures." 

Our great poet, Milton, who was also no inferior divine, 
thus describes the first efforts at speech on the part of our 
first father : 

" To speak I tried, and forthwith spake. 
My tongue obeyed, and readily could name ■ 
Whate'er I saw." 

When the various animals were presented, 

" I named them as they passed, and understood 
Their nature ; with such knowledge God endued 
My sudden apprehension." 

Bishop "Warburton thus reasons in behalf of the divine 
gift of language. Regarding it as indispensable that the 
knowledge of divine things should come directly from 
God, he says : "If God taught the first man religion, can 
we think that he would not, at the same time, teach him 
language ? If it be said that he might gain language by 
the use of reason, it might be replied, so he might relig- 
ion also."* 

* Many traditions of the ancient world point to this as a fact in the early 
history of man ; and, as there was, of course, only one language at first — and 
that, probably, the language used by Noah, the father of the renewed race after 
the flood — which continued until the dispersion of Babel, several nations have 
claimed for their language the honor of a divine original. The belief of many 
learned men is, that the original language was one from which the Hebrew and 
Chaldaic were derived, since there are so many words in each of them common 
to both, or bearing a strong resemblance. Homer, in his great poem the Iliad, 
speaks of the language of gods and men as diiferent; and one of his annotators 
affirms that the language of gods, who were once mortals, and most probably 
represent Adam and Noah, and three of the sons of each, was the Hebrew, 
while the language of men was the Greek, in which his poem was written. As 
to the question, which of those that were used after the confusion of languages 
at Babel comes nearest to the original, or whether that original one may not 
have been retained, for a time at least, by one or more of the dispersed tribes, 
the learned differ. Recent investigations into the roots of various languages 



EARLY HISTORY OF MAS. 



31 



The very reason of things, and the absolute necessity of 
the case, seem to require that language should be the gift 
of God himself. If our earthly parents teach us to speak 
as soon as our organs are capable of it ; if they, through 
words, communicate such knowledge as we are able to re- 
ceive, especially telling who made us, — how much more 
would the great Father teach his full-grown children, 
made after his own image, what was necessary to be 
known by them concerning himself, and their duty to him 
and each other. It has been justly remarked, that "If 
man had been left a single day without revelation, it 
would be like being born blind." Bishop Stillingfieet 
says, " If man was not convinced, in the very first moment 
after his creation, of the being of him whom he has to 
obey, his first work and duty would have been, a search 
whether there was any supreme, infinite, and eternal be- 
ing" — a question which has puzzled so many philosophers, 
and which would have puzzled them much more, but 
for the light of tradition coming down from original 
revelation.* 

trace them all, more and more certainly, to a very few, which were spoken 
soon after the dispersion. All these discoveries tend more and more to estab- 
lish the doctrine of the unity of the humau race, which, of course, both in the 
first creation and after the deluge, spoke but one language. One of the ancients 
prnpoii-s to .sirtlli; th'' i|in-»tinri in the nlih-nt I.iiil'U.i_'i- by brin^in^ up two 
children in a desert among goats ; to which Bishop Stillingfieet well replies, 
that " They would doubtless speak the language of gouts." I believe some 
experiments of this sort have been attempted, but am unable to state the re- 
sults. 

* The following lines from an American, in a little poem which I have re- 
cently seen, very happily express the views contained in this chapter concern- 
ing the divine instruction given to the first man : 

" God left him not 
To grope his way, ami win by long deduction 
The precious knowledge that we have a God, 
Hut showed himself at once. 

"So Adam names to all the creatures gave, 
Ileeuusc he saw them In the light of God, 
Kroni whom to them he went." 

ISy the Rev. Adam HOOD BuHwiai., 
Uf Canada. 



32 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



If, then, there was this express communication through 
words, by God himself, to our first parents, they would 
certainly deliver what they had received to their children, 
in the same manner in which it was communicated to 
them, and this stream of knowledge would flow down 
from generation to generation. This transmission of ac- 
curate knowledge of such important things as God's first 
dealings with man, would be the more easily effected by 
means of a fact of which we are assured in scripture, tra- 
dition, and all history, viz., that the lives of men were 
much longer than at present, so that only one link was 
necessary to connect Adam with Noah, and two with 
Abraham. Doubtless, after a time, some other method, 
whether by books or documents, was adopted in order to 
perpetuate the knowledge of what God had done for man, 
either at first or afterwards. There were not a few tradi- 
tions in the ancient world, that some sacred books existed 
before the flood, and even survived the flood. 

Nor can we see anything unreasonable in the supposi- 
tion that there were written characters and books before 
the flood, when we consider the advance made in some of 
the arts, as of instrumental music on the harp and organ, 
and the manufactures in iron and brass, which we have 
recorded in the brief sketch of antediluvian history by 
Moses. We know that soon after the flood letters and 
books were in use. Moses, in the seventh or eighth cen- 
tury after the flood, as is generally supposed, at the com- 
mand of God, committed to writing his laws ; and God 
himself, with his own hand, in characters which must have 
been well known, engraved the ten commandments on 
tables of stone. 

In all the wisdom of the Egyptians, with which Moses 
was acquainted, there must have been letters and books. 
Before his time indeed, there is reason to believe they had 
been communicated from Egypt to Greece. Is it then im- 



EARLY HISTORY OF MAN. 



83 



probable tbat in all the period preceding the deluge, no 
such advance should have been made through which cer- 
tain religious knowledge and history may have come 
down to Noah and his sons, adding confirmation to oral 
tradition.* 

"Why God, in his providence, permitted such documents 
to be lost, and so little of antediluvian history to be rescued 
from the deluge ; why he has also permitted to be lost so 
much of postdiluvian history from the time of the deluge 
until Moses, and even after Moses, — for his history is very 
brief, and only of a small portion of the human family, and 
there is no other ; why so many of the documents and his- 
tories of his time and afterwards, of which we have only 
fragments, were permitted to perish ; why so much valu- 
able learning of Egypt and other countries was allowed 
to be consumed in the Alexandrine library, it is not for 
us to know. Doubtless God has wise and sufficient reasons 
for this permissive providence, as for all else.f 

Whatever may have been the character or amount of 
tradition and documents of the early antediluvian history 
of man, and of God's dealings with him, and of apostasies 

• A learned mythologist, the Rev. George Stanley Faber, who has written 
more extensively on ancient paganism than perhaps any other, after stating 
some of the traditions collected from the most ancient authors, concerning cer- 
tain sacred hooks said to have been preserved in the ark, or otherwise, con- 
cludes, that though he will not undertake to determine the point, yet that he 
sees nothing improbable in the supposition that Noah may have preserved and 
ddfa ered to his posterity some documents, which in time became corrupted into 
fable, though still retaining some original truth. 

Can anything be more probable than that genealogies were carefully kept 
before the flood, of births, ages, and deaths ; that they were preserved by Noah 
in the ark; and th.it Muses was acquainted with these anil drew his statements 
frutn them, ju.it as the Jews kept their genealogies, and the Evangelists made 
nsc of them in tracing our Saviour's descent? 

t The Alexandrine library, the depository of the learning of the ancient world, 
was destroyed in the time of Julius Ca:sar. In the seventh century, the Saru- 
cens swept away all the libraries of the Eastern world. The remains only of 
ancient books may have been lea, aud are dispersed through the world, as the 
Jews are, to testily of Christ. 

3 



34: 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



from him, it is certain that the knowledge and worship of 
the true God were retained in the family of Noah, and 
through him and his descendants diffused through the 
renovated world. 

"Whatever may have been the precise object of that great 
enterprise at Babel, which so displeased the Almighty as 
to make him disperse the irreligious actors in it through 
various lands, they must have carried with them the tradi- 
tions of the leading facts of the history of man before, at, 
and after the deluge, and of God's dealings with him ; and 
these traditions must have formed a part of their religious 
system, however corrupted that system may have been 
before, at, and after the daring association at Babel. 
Such was the perversion of the truth in the country of 
Chaldea, where this impious proceeding took place, 
that we find God separating Terah and his family, (who, 
though descendants of Shem, and properly belonging to 
the land of Canaan, according to God's appointment, were 
found among the ungodly posterity of Ham, in Ur of the 
Chaldees,) and carrying them to Canaan. Although not 
renouncing the true God, yet Terah and his family, and 
perhaps Abraham himself, had partaken somewhat in the 
false worship, since Joshua, in his address to the Israelites 
after entering the land of Canaan, says, " Your fathers be- 
yond the flood — the river Euphrates — served other gods." 
Abraham is selected by the Almighty to be the father of 
a special people, whom he made the depository of his 
laws and revelations, in order to the preservation of the 
truth among men, from whom it was rapidly passing 
away. 

To Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob he manifested himself, 
at sundry times, and thus kept alive the true knowledge 
of God. To Joseph also he showed great favor, preserv- 
ing him from the then growing idolatry of Egypt. But 
something more was necessary to save even the descend- 



EARLY HISTORY OF MAX. 



35 



ants of "the father of the faithful" from being over- 
whelmed by that deluge of impiety and idolatry which 
was sweeping over the earth. The children of Israel, 
though still having some knowledge of the true God, had 
become but too much attached to the abominations of 
Egypt, and could only be preserved from utter apostasy 
by an entire removal therefrom, under the guidance of 
Moses. "With an " high hand and outstretched arm," 
amidst stupendous miracles, God led them forth from 
Egypt, keeping them for forty years not only separate 
from all others who might corrupt them, but in the midst 
of enemies who resisted their progress at every movement 
towards the promised land. While feeding them from 
heaven with daily bread, and performing repeated mira- 
cles, he was also speaking to them from Mount Sinai, and 
from the Shekinah between the Cherubim, delivering laws 
and appointing ordinances. An account of all this we 
have in the five books of Moses, besides a long narrative 
of man's history and God's dealings with him, before and 
after the flood. "When our Lord was upon earth he recog- 
nized these books as of divine authority, and often re- 
ferred to them. Moses laid claim to divine instruction, 
establishing it by many and great miracles, during a pe- 
riod of forty years, beginning in Egypt and continuing 
until he was in sight of the promised land. Concerning 
this book we may say, without fear of contradiction, that 
by consent of the learned it is the most ancient in the 
world. Traditions and fragments of books, relating to the 
same great events referred to in Genesis, there have been 
in other countries, before the days of Moses and about his 
time; but none of these survive, except in some fragments 
which the lathers of the Christian church drew from the 
fragments of other writers, the oldest of whom was many 
hundred years after Moses. The books of Moses were 
written, according to general belief, about seven or eight 



36 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



hundred years after the deluge, and about four hundred 
after the call of Abraham. God most emphatically com- 
manded him to write down all that was delivered him "as 
a memorial ;" and in no nation under heaven was so much 
care taken of records as among the Jews, in the time of 
Moses and afterwards. Some hundreds of years after Moses 
these books became so notorious in the world, that Ptole- 
my Philadelphns, a king of Egypt and a great patron of 
learning, caused them to be translated into the Greek by 
seventy learned men. 

Judea being situated, as it were, in the centre of the 
world, between the three most ancient nations, viz., Egypt, 
Phoenicia, and Chaldea, to which all others looked for his- 
tory, religion, and philosophy, must have been an object 
of interest to the priests and wise men of the same ; and 
as many of the Jews, from an early period, were to be 
found in Egypt, and in Tyre and Sidon, cities of Phoeni- 
cia, and in Babylon of Chaldea, these sacred writings, and 
their religious opinions, must have been in some measure 
known, especially when the philosophers of Greece began 
to travel through those countries in search of all kinds of 
knowledge. About the same time that Ptolemy caused 
the Jewish scriptures to be translated into Greek, he en- 
couraged Manetho, the oldest and most celebrated histo- 
rian of Egypt, to draw up an account of the antiquities 
of that country, going back to the origin of the world, 
and embracing of course in some measure the history of 
other nations. The same great patron of learning induced 
the celebrated Berosus to write a similar history of the an- 
tiquities of Babylonia, a country vying with Egypt as to 
age and knowledge of divine things. Both of these his- 
tories were written some hundreds of years after the books 
of Moses. Some years later, Sanchoniathon wrote the his- 
tory of Phoenician antiquities. All of these profess to 
have gathered their histories from monuments, traditions, 



EAELY HISTORY OF MAX. 



ST 



temples, hieroglyphics, (not from any regular histories 
such as that of Moses,) which had come down to them 
from former times.* They were not employed to trans- 
late some venerahle documents like the Old Testament, 
the larger part of which had been written and used pub- 
licly for some hundreds of years by a people living in the 
midst of the greatest nations of the earth, but only to pre- 
pare histories out of such materials as could be found 
amongst traditions and monuments, and in their worship. 
Need I institute a comparison between them ? Even these 
three books, the oldest in the shape of history in the world 
except Ilerodotus, (whose work bears the title of the nine 
Muses, — very happily, some think,) are no longer in exist- 
ence, except, as we have already said, in some few frag- 
ments to be seen in the early fathers. How wonderfully 
has the providence of God watched over, preserved, and 
handed down to us this sacred volume, while permitting 
all others to perish. f And yet not all of these have been 
allowed to perish. Enough in fragments has survived to 
show that, notwithstanding all the fables into which divine 
truth has been turned, the leading facts of the Mosaic 
history are substantiated by general tradition. 

Moses, under the guidance of God's Spirit, was appointed 
to deliver to us the main facts of creation, and ancient 
history, and God's dealings with men, free from all admix- 

• Pliilo Biblius, the Jewish writer, says, "It was the good fortune of Sancho- 
niathon to light on some ancient documents which hud been preserved in the 
innermost part of a temple of Ammon, and known to very few. He had, how- 
ever, to divest them of fable before he could druw uny tiling from them." I am 
awurc that grave doubts rest on the authorship of the book ascribed to Sun- 
choniathon, but I give whnt was formerly the generally received opinion on the 
mi l>j. < t . His book is certainly a compilation of very ancient traditions. 

tiiir Matthew Hale, on the Antiquity of Moses' writings, says, " Many mill- 
ion* of books that have been written since Moses' time have been lost; much 
more tboic books which were written antecedent to Moses' time ;— and the truth 
is, that the preservation of the books of Moses tniire unto thiB day, when so 
many of a far later date are lost, is to be attributed to the special providence 
of Almighty God." 



38 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



ture of falsehood. It is not to be understood that God re- 
vealed to him all that he wrote, as something before un- 
known to himself or others, but only that he was guided 
to write down what was true, and leave out what was false 
in the general traditions which prevailed in his day. 

The knowledge of one God, and the temptation and fall 
of man by the devil, in the form of a serpent, and the 
banishment of our first parents from paradise, of the 
wickedness of the antediluvians, of the ark and deluge, 
of the tower of Babel, had all been understood among 
men ; but perversions and fables and idolatries had been 
blended with them, — and Moses was enabled to give a 
brief and true history of the works of God, and his deal- 
ings with men, not mixing poetry, or philosophy, or as- 
tronomy, or any human theories, with it. Much that he 
knew, and that others knew, was omitted, but nothing that 
was necessary to the great object of his appointment. So 
it was when the New Testament was completed, under the 
guidance of the Holy Ghost. We are told by St. Luke, 
that if all which was said and done by our Lord was writ- 
ten down, " the whole world would not contain the books 
which must be written." The Evangelists only recorded 
such things as were " surely known among them," and 
were necessary to the great end and object of the Evan- 
gelical Record. Of both these Testaments we may say, 
with Mr. Locke, " They have God for their author, salva- 
tion for their end, and truth without any mixture of error 
for their matter." It is, however, gratifying to be able to 
bring in every kind of testimony to the truth of scripture, 
and therefore it is well worthy of being mentioned, in 
this connection, that there was a class of writers of a very 
early date, in the pagan world, who were esteemed sacred 
poets, and who preceded Homer, Hesiod, and others, who 
were the heroic poets. The former dwelt more on the 
creation of the world, on the first god or gods, on the 



EARLY HISTORY OF MAST. 



39 



early history of man, before and after the deluge. Hor- 
ace, in his book "De Arte Poetica," refers to these two 
classes in the following lines : 

" Fuit haec sapientia quondam 
Publica privatis secernere, sacra profanis ; 
Sic honor et nomen divinis vatibus at que 
Carminibus venit. Post hos insignis Homerus, 
Tyrteusque mares anirnos in martia bella 
Versibus exacuit." — Ilorace Be Arte Poetica. 

From these lines it seems that there were, before the 
time of Homer, some called divine poets, who wrote divine 
verses, and were held in high esteem. The term vates, or 
prophets, was applied to them. The names of the chiefs of 
these poets were Musams, Orpheus, Linus, Amphion, 
and Hermes, who are supposed to have lived from 1250 
to 1400 years before Christ, whereas Homer only lived 
about 900. If this computation be correct, they lived 
near the time of Moses. They refer to the same ancient 
events and periods with Muses, though they for the most 
part wrap them up in fables and extravagant verses. 
They evidently come much nearer the original trutli, as 
to God and the creation of man, than those who followed 
after them. As to the supreme being, Orpheus, or who- 
ever wrote the Orphic verses, (for the authorship is doubt- 
ful,) had more scriptural views than most others. They 
all belonged to some part of Greece, though they repre- 
sented the earlier theology of Egypt aud Chaldea. In 
the course of our work we shall have occasion to adduce 
proofs of this. They appear to have lived at a period 
when many of the families and tribes, which had been 
dispersed fn.in IJ;ibel and had settled in dillerenl pails 
of Greece, had sunk into comparative barbarism and 
ignorance; and these poets, by their verses and instruc- 
tions, contributed to the improvement of the 6ame. This 



40 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



is what is meant by their taming wild beasts, by means 
of their harps and lyres and verses.* 

When these ancient poets passed away, and with them 
much of original truth, though even then mixed with much 
error and fable ; and when Greece, emerging from a state 
of semi-barbarism, aspired to a place among the older na- 
tions from whence they emigrated, and from which they 
derived their arts and learning, — Homer and Hesiod new- 
modelled their theology, and in their poems classified the 
gods, adding many things unknown before, and thus 
claimed antiquity and originality for Greece. We have 
abundant evidence of this in ancient authors. Plato says 
that " The most genuine helps to philosophy were bor- 
rowed from those who were called barbarous by the 
Greeks ;" that " they new mould and fashion everything ;" 
that " other countries abide more determinately by the 
terms which they have traditionally received." 

Plato acknowledges that " the nearer the originals the 
truer ;" that " the higher we go up to the ages nearest 
creation, the more visible the traces of truth." 

These things, however, he says, " were wrapt up in the 
fables of the poets ; that he could only try to make the 

* " Caedibus et victu fado deterruit Orpheus 

Dictns ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidos que leones 
Dictus et Amphion Thebanas conditor urbis 
Saxa movere sonu testudinis et voce blauda 
Ducere quo vellet." — Horace. 

Some modern wag has thus described the power of Amphion : 

" 'Twas said of old of one Amphion, 
That by his verses he could tame a lion, 
And, by his strange enchanting tunes, 
Make bears and wolves dance riggadoons." 

To these early poets of Greece there might doubtless be added others of the 
same period in Phoenicia and Chaldea, all of whom contributed their share to 
whatever remainder of primitive truth may be found in the Asiatic systems of 
Phoenicia, Persia, Chaldea, and Judea. 



EARLY HISTORY OF MAS. 



41 



best use of them until some one came to explain them." 
Thus spoke the best of the philosophers of Greece. They 
alluded to these allegories, by which some of the earlier 
poets set forth sacred and early facts, which were brought 
by the first settlers into Greece, but which were more and 
more obscured by the fictions of later poets. 

Of the pagan mythology, as held by the Greeks, we 
find little in the writings of the three ancient historians, 
Manetho, Berosus, and Sanchoniathon ; for this we must 
go to Homer and Hesiod, who settled it for all future 
times. Wherefore we find, that when the best philoso- 
phers appeared, they went to Egypt and the East, the ear- 
liest settled countries, in search of wisdom. Thales, the first 
of them, drew his wisdom from Egypt, where he spent 
some years ; he advised his disciple Pythagoras to travel 
in search of wisdom among the ancient nations. Pythag- 
oras, obeying his master's advice, spent forty years in 
gathering all the traditions he could get from the Egyp- 
tians, Jews, Phoenicians, and Chaldeans. 

Plato, after speaking of the traditions of the etistern 
countries, said, " Their knowledge of the Deity was de- 
rived from the gods ;" that " the ancients, who lived nearer 
to the gods than we, have transmitted it unto us." He 
speaks of Adam's state of innocence under the fable of 
Saturn's golden age, but 6ays that " we want a fit inter- 
preter of the fable." 

Mr. George Sandys, translator of Ovid's Metamorphoses, 
speaking of the philosophy taught in the ancient fables 
Which were set forth by Ovid, says, 

"P!i<i'tiu-< Apollo sar-reil Poesy 
Thus taught ; for in these ancient fables lie 
The mysteries of all philosophy." 

Py philosophy lie meant heavenly truths, as well as the 
secrets of nature. Mr. Shuckford, in his able work on 



42 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



the connection between sacred and profane history, says 
that " the works of the divine Plato were full of the 
ancient traditions, though he sometimes gives them a 
fabulous turn to humor the Greeks." Mr. Bryant, one of 
our most eminent mythological writers, alluding to this 
fabulous turn of the Greeks, says that Hecateus of 
Miletus acknowledges that " the traditions of the Greeks 
were as ridiculous as they were numerous." Theophilus, 
one of the fathers, says, " They were blinded by vanity, 
and neither discovered the truth themselves, nor encour- 
aged others to pursue it." Bishop Stillingfieet says that 
" the Greeks were beholden to their wits for their history, 
being so much given to fiction." They were anxious, he 
says, to be considered originals; 11 the sons of the soil 
(terrsegeni) ; the first of the human race." 

Bishop Potter, in his Grecian antiquities, says, that 
" As geographers, on their maps, when they have gone as 
far as they can, fill up the rest with impassable mountains 
and frozen seas, so the poets and mythologists, who were 
almost all of Greece, do when they give an account of 
ancient things." They were the more anxious to establish 
their antiquity, because taunted by other nations with 
their recent origin, being all of them, or their numerous 
tribes and nations, colonies from Asia and Egypt. An 
Egyptian priest once taunted Solon with this saying : 
" The Greeks were always children, having no antiquity 
of their own." The Egyptians, however, became, in time, 
as obnoxious to the charge of exaggerating their age as 
the Greeks. If they were older, by settlement, and supe- 
rior in wisdom to the early Greeks, they carried back 
their history and genealogy much further into the region 
of fable than even the Greeks did. Their historian, 
Manetho, seemed determined to outstrip Moses in his 
history of the creation of the world and the dynasties of 
the Egyptian kings, carrying them back thirty or forty 



EARLY HISTORY OF MAX. 



43 



thousand years. For this they have been subjected to 
the same ridicule that they cast on the Greeks. An 
ancient writer said of them, that " The wisest action 
they ever did was to conceal their religion" (meaning 
from the common people) ; and that " the best offices of 
their gods was to hold their fingers in their mouths, for 
such was the case with their images and statues." Bishop 
Stillingfleet says, " It was as easy to make an Ethiopian 
white, as to make an Egyptian tell the truth about his 
country." 

Nevertheless, both Greeks and Egyptians, notwithstand- 
ing all their silly fables and imaginations about themselves 
and their ancestors, bear strong testimonies as to the lead- 
ing facts in the early history of man, as to the creation, 
the chaos, the formation of the first parents, the fall, the 
deluge, the long lives of the antediluvians, the tower 
of Babel, and the dispersion. The origin of their gods 
seems veiy strongly to point to Adam and Noah and the 
three suns of each, although their poetry, philosophy, and 
astronomy made sad havoc with original history and truth. 

Very justly, therefore, docs Bishop Stillingfleet con- 
clude, that "All our moat laudable endeavors after knowl- 
edge (that is, original revelation) are only the gathering- 
up of some scattered fragments of what once was an 
entire fabric, and the recovery of what was lost out of sight 
and sunk in the shipwreck of human nature. Therefore 
it is that the Eastern nations had more of sacred truth 
in their religious systems, because they relied more on 
ancient tradition." They wrapped the ancient truth in 
wild fables, which the investigations of such men as Sir 
William Jones, Messrs. Faber and Bryant, and some 
others have now explained, by the help of the Holy Scrip- 
tures, in a manner that Plato, Socrates, and all the best of 
the ancient philosophers were unable to do; but these 
philosophers always acknowledged the superiority of the 



44 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



East, by travelling thither in search of wisdom, beginning 
with Egypt, which is an eastern colony. 

These fables and traditions were merely shadows of 
original revelation. It is well, therefore, for us to adopt 
the plan of Thales the Athenian, when collecting wisdom 
in Egypt, and who ascertained the height of the Pyr- 
amids by measuring the shadows. The Bible is the great 
pyramid of truth ; all other documents and traditions are 
the mere shadows. In confirmation of the foregoing testi- 
mony to the superior authority of the Eastern nations over 
the Greeks and others, we may add that the Persians and 
the early descendants of the inhabitants of the Ark are ac- 
knowledged to have retained the most accurate knowledge 
of the early history of creation, and true religion was 
longer adhered to among them, than among other nations ; 
and their magi, or wise men, were the first to welcome the 
Redeemer into the world. In relation to the remark that 
the earlier systems of paganism were as shadows to the 
substance, we add, that Archbishop Tillotson, in one of his 
sermons, after discussing the resemblance between them, 
says that " Paganism must either have been a corruption 
of our religion, or that ours must have been accommo- 
dated to it." The latter supposition is so contrary to all 
history, and so monstrous, that none can entertain it. 

"We have Moses and the prophets, Christ and the apos- 
tles, to-explain to us all that was true in the ancient fables. 
Truly does old Fuller say, "Without this history the world 
would be in total darkness, not knowing whence it came 
or whither it goeth. In the first page of this sacred book 
a child may learn more, in one hour, than all the philoso- 
phers of the world in a thousand years." To this we may 
add, that in a few succeeding chapters also, we have more 
accurate, though brief notices, not only of the nations de- 
scended from Abraham, through Esau as well as Isaac, 
but also of the Egyptians, Oanaanites, Chaldeans, and 



EARLY HISTORY OF MAX. 



45 



Phoenicians, than can be found in any other history. 
Truly, therefore, did our Lord call the Old Testament 
" The Scriptures," by way of eminence, there being none 
other to be compared with them.* 

There is one peculiarity of the Mosaic history and leg- 
islation, which deserves to be noticed before we close. 
While all the reputed founders of pagan mysteries and 
laws lay claim to some god, or hero, or inspiring genius, 
fas Nnma to the muse or goddess Egeria,) as the author 
or revealer of them, and allow all others to have their di- 
vine authors also, never disputing their claims, Moses is 
the only one who ascribes his system and history to the 
great first cause of all things — " the God of gods." lie 
alone declares all others to be false, claiming exclusive 
honor to his as the only true one. His God is a jealous 
God, and will not give any of his glory to another. 

All the gods of the heathen could live together in the 
great Pantheon at Rome in harmony ; but the God of 
Moses must dwell alone in the Heaven of heavens above, 
ami his public worship on earth must be in the temple at 
Jerusalem, from which every recognition of other gods 
must be banished. Whatever is true in other systems, 
whether literally or figuratively, in whole or in part, must 
come from the same original whence Moses draws his his- 
tory. ' 

This is the basis of our book. 

Bishop Warburton 6ays, that " Not one of the numerous 
rabble of Revelations ever pretended to have come from 
the First Cause, or to have taught the worship of the one 
true God in their public ministrations." He adds, " I 
have said in their public ministrations, for I have showed 
it was taught to a few in their mysteries." lie also quotes 



• Among the ancients they were called Pandect, or " Ribliothcca Sacra," be- 
cause oiitiiitiini; all the books unci tructs on the subject of Ood's communica- 
tions with men. 



46 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Eusebius as saying, " For the Hebrew people alone was 
reserved the honor of being initiated into the knowledge 
of God, the creator of all things, and of being instructed 
in the practice of true piety towards him." 

APPENDIX. 

The subject of chronology, or the periods of time 
which mark and divide the great events of history, is so 
intimately connected with the preceding chapter, that we 
add some remarks concerning it and certain events asso- 
ciated with it. Infidels triumph in the fact, that neither 
sacred nor profane history gives us certain and accurate 
information on this point, as though the great historical 
events of the world and dispensations of providence and 
doctrines of revelation could be established or refuted by 
the certainty or uncertainty of chronology, affecting only 
a few hundred years out of thousands. 

"We speak first as to the testimony of scripture, and 
acknowledge that the learned differ as to their under- 
standing of it, and that it does appear in some places to 
be inconsistent with itself. The possibility of some mistake 
in copying or translating is admitted as one cause of this 
seeming inaccuracy. Had accuracy been important in 
this, as in great saving truths, God, the faithful keeper 
of scripture, doubtless would not have permitted it. It is 
affirmed, that in this, as in some matter of science, the 
scripture was not given to teach all things which man. 
might desire to know with certainty ; although all it 
says is true as far as it goes. The learned, who have 
examined the account of the generations and genealogies 
of scripture, affirm that the evident design of the same 
is not to give the regular succession of every individual 
in the line, but only of leading characters, of great 
events and dispensations, and there are, therefore, some 



EARLY HISTORY OF MAX. 



47 



breaks or omissions, which, if they could be supplied, 
■would lengthen certain periods in the sacred history. 
This, they say, was common in the Eastern genealogies — 
as among the Arabians and others. They also say, that 
errors may have resulted from the fact that " figures had 
not come into use at an early period, but that alphabetical 
signs were employed as numerals." Thus it is that they 
account for the fact that the three oldest versions of the 
Pentateuch, or books of Moses, viz., the Hebrew, the 
Samaritan, and Septuagint, differ from each other some 
hundreds of years — their difference relating chiefly as to 
the period between the deluge and the call of Abraham ; 
that period about which all other histories and traditions 
are still more uncertain and variant. There is, however, 
an event in the history of the Jews which has served as 
an era to all historians, sacred and profane, about which 
there is no dispute, viz., the building of Solomon's temple 
about a thousand years before our era. From that time to 
thf birth of Christ, all history testifies with perfect accu- 
racy. The whole period from the deluge to the birth ©f 
Christ, must, of course, vary according as the preference 
in Lrivi-n t.> the computations <»f the Hebrew, Samaritan, 
or Septuagint versions, or that of Josephus, who agrees 
most nearly with the Septuagint translation made in the 
time of Ptolemy the First. 

Archbishop r>hrr\s system of chronology, which is 
most generally adopted, makes that period between 
twenty-three and twenty-four hundred years. Others 
have extended it to nearly twenty-eight hundred years. 
There is also a difference of opinion as to the period 
between tin: creation and the deluge. The more ireneral 
opinion is in favor of between sixteen and seventeen hun- 
dred years. Those who adopt the theory that the ante- 
diluvian genealogy by Moses was rather of leading charac- 
ters and events than a full list of each generation, will of 



48 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



course extend the period, without being able to deter- 
mine its length. 

Let us now inquire as to the chronology of the heathen 
nations of antiquity. Those which have boasted most of 
their antiquity were the Egyptians, the Babylonians, and 
the Chinese. Manetho, the Egyptian historian, and who, 
it is supposed, compiled his work at the instance of 
that Ptolemy who had caused the books of Moses to be 
translated, calculates that the Egyptian kingdom was 
thirty thousand years old. Berosus, who compiled the 
history of Babylonia about the same time and by the 
same authority, carries back its age to four hundred and 
sixty thousand years. The Chinese, calculating their 
eclipses backward, are yet more extravagant. It seems 
scarcely worth our while to notice such idle dreams. 
They expose themselves by their own folly. But some 
things may be said which will serve to account for their 
extravagances, and the extravagances being deducted, 
the sober truth which remains will be found to accord as 
nearly as can be expected and required with the Mosaic 
history. The B,ev. George Rawlinson, in his historical 
evidences, drawn in a great measure from the researches 
of his brother, Sir Henry Bawlinson, says, " Upon a little 
consideration the greater part of this difficiilty vanishes. 
If we examine the two chronologies (of Manetho and 
Berosus) we shall find that both evidently divide at a cer-' 
tain point, at which all is certainly mythic, (mere fiction,) 
while all below is, or at least may be, historical. Out of 
the thirty thousand years contained (apparently) in Mane- 
tho's scheme, nearly twenty-five thousand belong to the 
time when gods, demigods, and spirits had rule on 
earth ; and the history of Egypt, confessedly, does not 
begin till this period is concluded, and Menes the first 
Egyptian king mounts the throne. Similarly, in the 
chronology of Berosus, there is a sudden transition from 



EARLY HISTORY OF MAX. 



49 



kings, whose reigns are counted by reigns of sixty and six 
hundred years, to monarchs, the average length of whose 
reigns very little exceeds that found to prevail in ordinary 
monarchies. Omitting in each case what is plainly a 
mythic computation, we have in the Babylonian scheme 
a chronology which mounts up no higher than 2450 
years before Christ, or eight hundred years after the 
deluge, (according to the numbers of the Septuagint,) 
while, in the Egyptian, we have, at any rate, only an 
excess of about two thousand years to account for instead 
of twenty-seven. 

Mr. Rawlinson adds, that some of the greatest names 
in this branch of antiquarian learning, (the history of 
Egypt,) are in favor of a chronology almost as moderate 
as the historic Babylonian — the accession of Menes, ac- 
eording to them, falling about 2660 years before Christ, or 
more than 600 after the Septuagint date from the deluge. 

Herodotus seems to have been led astray as to the 
antiquity of Egypt; but it should be remembered that, 
according to his own statement, lit; received all his infor- 
mation from the priests of that country, who showed him 
a long list of their kings. But it is now well understood 
1 1 1 : it there were several divisions of Egypt, — the upper, 
middle, lower, etc., — all having their dynasties of kings, 
uud by adding them all together, as it is ascertained was 
sometimes done, the number of kings and the whole 
period of their reigns would be greatly increased. In 
tether confirmation of the more moderate estimate of 
Egypt's antiquity, let me adduce the testimony of Wilkin- 
son and Rawlinson, those modern, laborious, and faithful 
examiners of the monuments of Egypt and Babylonia. 
They aflinn that Egyptian liieroglyj.hical inscriptions on 
■tone may be traced to 24. r »< » years before Christ, and that 
inscriptions on brick were common in Ilabylonia two 
centuries later. Considering the probability that Noah 
4 



50 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



and his sons brought a knowledge of such things from 
the old world, who can doubt that the exercise of such 
art should be exercised in a short period after the deluge ? 
They who knew how to construct such a vessel as the 
ark, must have been artists and master workmen, compe- 
tent to almost any thing which the ingenuity of men has 
done.* 

In relation to China, Mr. Hardwic and others, have, 
in like manner, exposed their silly pretension to antiquity. 
Gutzlaff dates the commencement of the historical period 
of China, to 2207 before Christ. This may have been 
only a few hundred years after the deluge, as it is univer- 
sally admitted that the human family moved eastward 
with great rapidity. 

It must not be omitted to state, in connexion with this 
part of our subject, how recent investigations have served 
to raise the characters of Manetho and Berosus, and even 
of Herodotus, as witnesses to the main facts of scripture 
history. Manetho and Berosus (says Rawlinson) had free 
access to all national records ; and recent discoveries of 
monuments establish their fidelity, and give them a 
prominence above all others. It will be seen, during the 
progress of our book, in how many things these authors 
corroborate the testimony of Moses, and in how many 
things the testimony of the inscriptions found on tablets, 
recently dug up from the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh, 
and found in the ancient temples of Egypt, corroborates 
both scripture and the fragments of these writers. The 
accounts which Herodotus has given of the great Darius, 
and those found in the book of Daniel, are now further 

* This whole subject has been very ably and judiciously treated of, in a volume 
entitled "Science a Witness for the Bible," by the Eev. W. N. Pendleton, of 
Lexington, Va. In it he has exposed the iufidel geologists, who would find in 
the earth proofs of the existence of man long before the sixth day of creation, 
according to Moses, and has shown that the difficulties attendant on the scrip- 
tural chronology are of trivial import. 



EARLY HISTORY OF MAX. 



51 



confirmed by the cuneiform inscriptions to be seen at 
Behistan, in the higher lands of ancient Persia. On a 
ledge of rocks in the mountains extending from the Eu- 
phrates to the Tigris, about three hundred feet from the 
surface of the earth, is engraved, by the order of Darius, 
his own histoiy. Sir Henry Rawlinson and his com- 
panions deciphered the same ; and in the third volume of 
Herodotus, as translated by his brother, George Bawlin- 
son, are to be found twenty -four pages of this history in 
Persian and English. As Herodotus wrote after the 
time of Darius, and visited this, among other countries, 
in search of materials for his history, he may have ex- 
amined this document, or derived some of his information 
from those who were familiar with it. To this day it 
stands, high in air, establishing the truth of Daniel's 
history, while from the interior of the old palaces and 
temples of Babylon and Nineveh, long since buried deep 
under mouldered ruins, are continually being brought 
forth massive tablets, some of which are in our own and 
mother countries, bearing testimony to the truths of sacred 
history. 

For the period in which these things occurred, God had 
l<t ' ii preparing both his own chosen people and the 
nations around. 

"After the ago of Moses," says Mr. Pritcliard, " that of 
Samuel has heen fixed upon as the probable era for the 
cultivation of literature, when a school of prophets is 
first mentioned. The times of David and Solomon were 
a sort of Augustine age of Hebrew literature. The age 
of the great prophets was that of the most sublime poetry. 
The time of Ezra, after the captivity, was the era of his- 
torical compilation." 

But it was reserved for the sixth century before Christ 
to bo the period of more moral and religious changes, 
through the world at large, than ever occurred before. 



52 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



"While the Hebrews were suffering under the just judg- 
ments of God for past defection, and hanging up their 
harps on the willows by the waters of Babylon, and 
learning a lesson on the unity of God never to be for- 
gotten, the philosophers of Greece were struggling for 
divine knowledge — feeling after God, hoping they might 
find him. 

In Persia, Zoroaster was changing the religion of the 
people, borrowing, it is thought, something from the cap- 
tives of Babylon. In India, Buddha was also new-model- 
ling the established system of the country. In China, 
Confucius was restoring a more ancient system, and all 
of these changes were gradually preparing the way for 
the future introduction of the religion of Christ, though a 
long and dark night still intervened. 

We have thus brought down the order of events, through 
the channel of God's appointments, to a most interesting 
period in the history of man, where chronology is certain ; 
and what though we are unable to fix the precise era of 
man's creation, or of the deluge, or of the dispersion from 
Babel, or the call of Abraham ? The general belief is 
that Moses lived about 1500 years before the Christian 
era, but whether he was nearer the deluge by one, two, 
or three hundred years or more, matters not. 

Disputes there ever have been as to the period when 
Homer flourished and Troy was taken. Herodotus places 
Homer between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries before 
Christ ; more than two hundred years later than Moses.* 

Others differ by one or two hundred years, but the 
Biad and all that is true and good in it still remain. 
Some say that Musaeus and Linus were twelve or thirteen 

* Sir Matthew Hale thinks that Moses wrote 540 years before Homer, 350 
years before the Trojan war, and a considerable time before the apotheosis or 
inauguration of many of the heathen deities." — Primitive Origination, of Man- 
hind. 



EARLY HISTORY OF ilAX. 



53 



hundred years before Christ ; one or two hundred years 
after Moses. An old writer says that Museus was the 
tenth ancestor of Ilomer, and so several hundred years 
older than Ilomer, and nearer the time of Moses. It may 
be that while Moses was composing, and Miriam and 
others were singing, the noble songs in praise of God's 
deliverance of Israel flying from Egypt, ancient poets in 
other lands were writing and singing, according to the 
light which was still in them, some of the hymns which 
under the name of Orpheus were transmitted to later 
ages, and which retained faint glimpses of the one true 
God and Saviour. 



CHAPTER II. 



ON GOD, THE SELF-EXISTENT CREATOR OF THE WORLD AND OF 
ALL THINGS THEREIN. 

Oue plan in the following treatise will be, first, to state 
briefly from scripture the account there given of the sub- 
jects discussed in the several chapters, and then show 
what confirmation that account derives from heathen 
writers. 

In the first verse of the book of Genesis it is written, 
" In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth." 

"When Moses was commanded to lead the children of 
Israel out of Egypt, he asked by what name he should 
call that God who spoke to him, for there were then many 
who were worshipped as gods. In reply, God declared him- 
self to be " I am that I am ;" bids him say, " I am hath 
sent thee." Its meaning was, the eternal self-existent 
God, by distinction from all others called gods. 

The name Jehovah is also often used in scripture, and 
means the same thing. The Hebrews, out of reverence 
to it, never used it in common speech, but chose some 
other expression of the divine attributes, as Eloi or JEloi- 
him, Ja or Sabbaoth. In Deuteronomy vi. 4, it is writ- 
ten, " Hear, Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord." 
In opposition to all the supposed gods in heaven and 
earth, Moses declares that God said to him, " I am he, 
and even I am he, and there is no God with me." Joshua 
calls him the " Living God," " The God in heaven above, 
and in the earth beneath." Solomon says, "The heaven 
and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee." David 



GOD, THE SELF-EXISTENT CREATOR. 



55 



Bays, " There is no God beside thee." Job says, " In his 
hand is the sonl of every living thing, and the breath of 
all mankind." Isaiah says, " I am the first and I am the 
last, and beside me there is no God." St. Paul calls him 
" The one God and Father of all, who is above all, and 
through all, and in you all " — Eph. iv. Also, " The king 
eternal, immortal, and invisible, the only -wise God " — 1 
Timothy. Let these suffice out of the numbers which 
might be adduced to the same effect. 

Now, as to the confirmation of the scriptural account 
from other sources, I cpiote the words of the learned Dr. 
Cndworth in his most profound work, " The Intellectual 
System," as approved by Mr. Leland in his most valuable 
work " On the Advantages of the Christian Revelation." 
"Though the poets were the great depravers of the true 
primitive religion and theology among the pagans, yet 
they kept up the ancient tradition of one supreme deity. 
Amidst the crowds of divinities they mention, there is 
still running through all their writings the notion of one 
supreme, of whom they speak in the most exalted terms, 
and to whom they ascribe the highest divine attributes, 
and which are really peculiar to the true God." Still, 
tin able writers acknowledge that the poets often con- 
founded him whom they represent as the supreme deity 
with that Jupiter who was the son of Saturn and Rhea, 
and of whom such indecent stories were told. St. Paul 
tells us that the heathen did not " ehoose to retain God 
in their knowledge ;" therefore ( '•<>(] gave them up to them- 
selves, and they believed all the lies which in time came 
to be added to the original truth. 

But Mr. Leland quotes many passages from ancient 
authors, showing the existence of an eternal being, the 
creator of the world. 

Among the \v..rks of Aristotle there is a quotation from 
an ancient work, " Dc Mundo" which says, that " this 



5G 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



was an ancient tradition or doctrine descended to all 
men from their fathers." 

Plutarch himself said, though there were one, ten, fifty, 
or an hundred worlds, they were all subject to one su- 
preme, solitary, and independent God. The Stoics held 
one supreme, eternal, independent God, hut also that the 
world was full of gods and demons. These latter being 
created, in time, by the one God, would all one day be de- 
stroyed. Most of the philosophers considered the Gods as 
being part of the supreme, as members of a body, as a 
congeries of gods, and therefore used the term Gods and 
God as synonymous. Thus did Plato, Socrates, and Cicero. 
In his last moments, according to Plato, Socrates said, 
" If the Gods will have it so, let it be so ;" but shortly after, 
" If God will have it so," using the term God and Gods 
as meaning the same thing. This is the constant custom 
of the philosophers and many others. 

Plutarch, in his work on Egyptian antiquities, repre- 
sents it as an opinion of the utmost antiquity, which had 
not its original from any known author, and was generally 
spread among Greeks and barbarians. 

Plato and Cicero speak often and strongly in the 
same style. Traditions also exist to the same effect in 
nations where it was least to be expected, as among the 
Hottentots, the negroes of Guinea, throughout India, in 
Ceylon, and in America. Very justly does Mr. Leland 
conclude, with many other learned men, that " It is most 
natural to ascribe this remarkable fact to the remains of 
an ancient universal religion, which obtained from the 
beginning, and was derived from the first ancestors of the 
human race." 

The learned Stillingfleet, in his " Origines Sacrce" de- 
clares as the result of all his inquiries into the early records 
of man, that "There does not appear so much as a single 
dissenter, in the early ages, as to the existence of a God." 



GOD, THE SELF-EXT3TEXT CREATOR. 



57 



Atheism is a tiling of much later growth, and was sel- 
dom found even among the sceptical philosophers. Dr. 
Cudworth calls it " a dull, earthly disbelief of the exist- 
ence of any thing beyond the reach of sense." 

The first approach to a reference to atheism is to be 
found in Homer, who makes Hector say, 

" The weakest atheist wretch all heaven defies. 
But shrinks and shudders when the thunder flies." 

Perhaps, however, as the thunderer was Jupiter the 
6on of Saturn, we ought not to consider those who denied 
his supreme divinity as among the atheists. Neverthe- 
less, he certainly ascribes to him some of the attributes of 
the great God, as in the following lines : 

"0 thou Supreme, high thron'd, all height above, 
Such was our word, and fate our word obeys." 

To him are ascribed " The wise counsels of the eternal 
mind." He is called the God of gods. " The first and 
greatest God by gods ordained." 

" If I but stretch this hand, 
The heavens, the gods, the ocean, and the land, 
The united strength of all the gods above, 
In vain resists the omnipotence of Jove, 
Supreme of gods, unbounded and alone." 

Again, 

M Immortal Jove, high heaven's superior Lord, 
Father of gods and men." 

The Gentiles, thus enlarging from time to time the 
number of their gods, yet retained, for the most part, the 
same rites and sacrifices of which we read in scripture, as 
appointed and used in the service of Jehovah ; still otter- 
ing them to him also as father and chief of the gods, — a 
fact which shows that originally it was the one (tod in 
whom they believed. In process of time there grew up 



58 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



among the poets and philosophers a kind of atheism, which 
supposed that God was not the creator of the world, but 
only the soul of it; just as our souls animate and govern 
our bodies, but do not make them. Others, again, thought 
that the whole world of matter and spirit was God him- 
self, and had no maker. These were certainly atheists. 
Others of a less dangerous character there were, who 
thought that matter was eternal, but that a divine mind 
fashioned it into various forms, thus making our world 
and all things in it of eternally preexisting materials. 
This, however, is certainly not the scriptural account of 
God and creation. 

To ascribe eternal existence to matter is to give to it 
one of the main attributes of God, and is a species of 
atheism. Spinoza, a modern infidel, held that all things 
were necessary emanations from God, and modifications 
of his essence, not creations by him. 

One of the philosophers, Plotinus, reasons thus : The 
great king of the universe shows his greatness chiefly by 
the multitude of gods — not by contracting himself into 
one, but by expanding himself, and having many gods to 
rule over. Even Aristotle says, " There is one God, the 
king and father of all ; and many gods, sons of gods, 
co-reigners with God ; these things both the Greeks and 
barbarians alike affirm." Well did Strabo, the Roman his- 
torian, declare, that "Moses had better notions of God 
than the Egyptians." 

The doctrine of pantheism became so current in Egypt, 
that there was an altar in that country to the chief female 
deity, Isis, with this inscription : 

" Tibi unae quae es omnia." 

Others, again, there were, who held that matter was eter- 
nal, though not independent of God, but rather proceeding 
from him, and coeval with him ; as light, though proceed- 



GOD, THE SELF-EXISTENT CREATOR. 



59 



ing from the sun, was coeval with it. It is somewhat in 
the same way that we speak in relation to the Trinity, 
that the Son proceeds from the Father, and the Holy 
Ghost from the Father and the Son, though all are equal 
and all eternal. 

FURTHER CONFIRMATION'S OF THE SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE 
FROM ANCIENT AUTHORS. 

According to Diogenes Laertius, the ancient Greek poet 
Linus begins a poem, which, in our language, reads thus: 

" There was a time, when all things rose at once." 

To Orpheus, or the author of the Orphic verses, sup- 
posed to be the most ancient winter among the heathen, 
are ascribed the following lines : "All things were made 
by God, and God is all things." "All things were in the 
womb of God." "All things were out of God." Plutarch 
ascribed to Hermes, who was reputed to be the most 
ancient of Egyptian writers, the following : " This whole 
world is a great god, and the image of a greater." " The 
Lord "f eternity is a great God, and the second is the 
world." " It belongs to the great God to see all things, 
and to be seen of none." Plutarch tells us, that in the 
temple of Sais in Egypt there was an inscription in these 
words: •• I am all that hath bci :,. is, and -hall be, and my 
peplnm, or veil, no mortal hath uncovered." He also in- 
forms us, that the inhabitants of Thebais, one of the ancient 
divisions of Egypt, never would acknowledge any mortal 
god; but worshipped an unmade eternal l>eity, refu.-ing 
to pay any tax for the worship of other gods. 

It is a well known fact, in ancient history, that the 
Persian- retained the wor.-hip of the true find lunger than 
any of the nations around ; and that they urged Xerxes to 
destroy all the temples of Greece, saying that God's temple 
was the universe, and that he would not be confined to 



60 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



the temples made with hands. This sentiment is promi- 
nently set forth in the prayer of Solomon, at the dedica- 
tion of the temple at Jerusalem. Though the Persians fell 
into the idolatry of worshipping the heavenly bodies, still 
the remains of their early traditions furnish us with some 
valuable testimonies to the truth of the Mosaic account. 

The Egyptians worshipped God at an early period, under 
the name Cneph ; and they fabled the creation of the world, 
by saying that out of his mouth proceeded an egg, from 
which all nations sprung, or were hatched. At another 
period he was called Jupiter, whose spirit was said to per- 
vade all things. One of the ancient poets gives us the 
following description of Jupiter : 

" Jupiter est, fuit, atque erit ;" 

which comes nearer to the "lam that I am" of the scrip- 
tures, than anything else we have found among the pagan 
writers. 

Cudworth maintains that the Jupiter of the ancients 
was often identified with the great God of the universe ; 
that when he is called Pater qptimus Deorum, the Father 
of gods and men, he is then the great JsTumen, or God of 
the universe. Thus Virgil makes ^Eneas call him, Oh 
Pater, oh hominum Divum que, Etema Potestas. Though, 
in another place, he falls into the pantheistic view, and 
makes Jupiter pervade all nature, and identifies him with 
matter : 

"Spiritus intus alit, totas que infusa per artus, 
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpori miscet." 

But there is no inconsistency in doctrine of which the 
poets may not be convicted, for the want of revelation. All 
that we can expect of them are some remnants of original 
truth, some testimonies to facts in the early history of 
men, and even these mixed up with more or less fables. 

As to the very name of the Deity, there was a feeling 



GOD, THE SELF-EXISTEXT CREATOR. 



61 



among some of the pagans like that among the ancient 
Jews, which made them fear to vise it lest it shonld be 
taken in vain. Thus Plato says, "The Father of the uni- 
verse cannot be named." "The fables," he said, "spoke most 
of God and creation ; but he could not explain them, and 
must wait until some one should come and tell their 
meaning." The ancient Romans worshipped one whom 
they called Summanus, and who was greater than their 
Jupiter; though, in process of time, when the great Jupiter 
Capitolinus was set up in Rome, they transferred the 
chief worship to him. As to the first god, Noma, second 
king of the Romans, and famed for his piety, directed that 
no one should attempt to express the ineffable name of 
God, and fur nearly two centuries after the building of 
Rome no images were allowed either in sculpture or paint- 
ing. As to the difficulty of understanding the nature 
of that God who declares that "noue by searching can 
find him out ;" that "no man hath seen him, or can see 
him;" that "he hideth himself in darkness," — the story 
of Simoiiides, the poet, is worthy of being mentioned. 
" Being asked by Hiero, king of Syracuse, what God was, 
he desired a day to answer the question ; and when that 
period had expired, lie requested two days; upon being 
again called upon for his answer, he doubled the number, 
and continued so to do, when he was urged upon the sub- 
ject. The king, therefore, expressed his surprise, and 
inquired his reason. I do so, 6aid the poet, because the 
longer I meditate upon the subject, the lc.-s I find myself 
able to answer the question." Very much of the same 
mind was Plato, who said that " we ought not curiously 
to inquire what God is;" and again, that " it was difficult 
to find out the author of the universe, and when found, it 
was impossible to discover him to all the world." Thus 
we see that Plato held the existence of a supreme, super- 
intending Deity, although he believed also in the eternity 



62 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



of matter, and of many inferior gods who watched over 
the affairs of men, and ought to be worshipped. 

Cicero also believed in the gods, as well as in the su- 
preme Deity, and yet says, in relation to the works of 
nature, "How is it possible for us, when we behold 
these things, to entertain a doubt that there presideth 
over them some maker of so great a work." The same 
Cicero admits, that "The earth was the oldest of all the 
gods generated in the heavens," for he believed that all 
the heavenly bodies were gods moving through the heav- 
ens by an animating spirit, and shedding light and heat. 
Plato and Cicero are considered as the great teachers of 
the unity of God, and yet we see how far they fall short 
of the unity taught in scripture. They upheld, it is true, 
the ancient mysteries, and were initiated into them. In 
them the unity of God was sometimes set forth. Bishop 
"Warburton, a great defender of the heathen against the 
charge of denying the unity of God, quotes the following 
passage from one of the hymns sung in the celebration of 
the Elusinian mysteries, " Go on and see the sole Governor 
of the world ; he is one, and of himself alone, and to that 
one all owe their being. He operates through all, was 
never seen of mortal eyes, but does himself see every- 
thing." As I wish to adduce whatever is most important 
in favor of the acknowledgment of the one true God 
by the ancients, I introduce the judgment of the cele- 
brated Sir William Jones, as set forth in his "Asiatic 
Researches." Brahm, the great Father, thus addresses 
Brahma, one of his three emanations : " Even I was at first, 
not any other thing ; that which exists uuperceived and 
supreme." Again he says, " I am that which is, and who 
must remain I am." 

Truth, however, requires us to say, that the worship of 
the supreme Deity did not keep pace with the acknowl- 
edgment of his existence. His original creative power 



GOD, THE SELF-EXISTENT CREATOR. 



C8 



was admitted, but bis providential care over men, in an- 
swer to prayer, was not relied on. On tbe inferior deities, 
as ministers of tbe great God, and as mediators between 
men and God, was tbe chief reliance. Of tbis we sball 
speak more fully hereafter. We only now say tbat tbe 
God of Moses and of Christians is especially tbe God 
" who heareth prayer," a God " near to us," and not " afar 
off," attending only to great matters, or else supinely enjoy- 
ing himself in the great abyss of eternity. " Lie tbat 
cometh unto God must not only believe that he is, but 
that he is the rewarder of all those who diligeutly seek 
him," is the scripture doctrine. 

" This notion," says Mr. Leland, " as to the Deity not 
concerning himself with the affairs of tbis world, and 
committing them to inferior deities, obtained very gene- 
rally among the pagans, and was a fruitful source of idol- 
atry." It was not a mere poetical flight which said " Xec 
Dens intersit, nisi dignus viudice nodus," but was a deep 
sentiment, which, it is to be feared, finds a place in the 
hearts ' >f too many, even now. It was the very basis of tbe 
Epicurean system, and a source of much of its immorality. 

It appeals, from both ancient and modern accounts 
of India, that they worship one great being as the cause 
of all things, but think he does not concern himself about 
little things, having created other gods to be his vice- 
gerents. These again have their subordinates, to each of 
whom worship is due. 

The Peruvians acknowledged a great God, but said lie 
was invisible, and therefore they could not know him, and 
therefore seldom erected temples to him, or offered wor- 
ship to him. Only one or two temples to the great God 
were to be found in Peru. The people of Florida were oi 
the same mind ami practice. The people of Guinea also 
acknowledge a greut being, but say he is too far oft' to 
take notice of poor mortals ; therefore neither pray to him 



64 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



nor praise him, but pray and sacrifice to a number of 
small deities. While the passage in St. Paul,, taken from 
the poet Aratns, concerning " our being the offspring of 
God," and " living, moving, and having our being in 
him," shows that there were some at least who entertained 
more just views of his relation to us; yet, when we con- 
sider the difference of these and of Epicurean and practi- 
cally atheistic views, we must acknowledge the indispen- 
sable necessity of knowing God, and not wonder that St. 
Paul's spirit was stirred within him, at the inscription at 
Athens " To the unknown God." How thankful should 
we be that we know the one God, and one Mediator, and 
trust not to all the gods and mediators of the heathen. 

The great Mr. Locke - says, that " In the crowd of wrong 
notions and invented rites, the world had almost lost sight 
of the true God." The fact is, that neither did the priests 
teach men virtue, as the same writer has well said, but it 
was not considered the duty of their greatest gods to 
make men good. It was their highest office to bestow 
earthly blessings and avert earthly evils. Sophocles might 
say, " There is one God, who made the broad earth and the 
waves of the sea and the force of the winds ; " but he 
could not say of him, that " every good and perfect gift 
cometh down from him," and that " if any lack wisdom, 
let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and 
upbraideth not." 

There is one of the ancient traditions of the poets and 
doctrines of the mycologists and philosophers in relation 
to the first cause of all things, which we must not omit. 
The oldest of the Deities, the source of men and gods and 
all worlds, is said, in some of the ancient systems, to be 
Love — the principle of Love. Every thing in the heathen 
mythology has been deified, whether of matter or mind, 
whether virtues or vices. Would that all had been as 
worthy of honor as the being or principle called Love / 



GOD, THE SELF-EXISTENT CREATOR. 



65 



for St. John himself says, " God is Love, and whatsoever 
is born of God loveth also." Among the celebrated 
Orphic songs ascribed, whether truely or not, to Orpheus, 
yet certainly among the oldest of the sacred poetry of 
pagan worshippers, we have the following: "We will 
sing a pleasant and delightful song concerning the ancient 
chaos ; how heaven, earth, and seas were framed out of 
it, as also concerning that much wise and sagacious Love, 
the eldest of all the Deities, and self-perfect, separating one 
thing from another." 

Mr. George Sandys, who in the wilds of Virginia trans- 
lated Ovid's Metamorphoses into English, thus refers to 
this ancient tradition : 

"Fire, Air, Earth, Water — all the opposites 
That strove in chaos — powerful Love unites, 
And from their discord drew this harmony 
That smiles in nature." 

How dreadful to think that this doctrine of Love, as 
being the moving principle of God's creation, should, in 
the hands of man, become so corrupted as to be enshrined 
in the persona and actions of Veuus and Cupid, and the 
very worst abominations of the heathen worship. 



CHAPTER III. 



ON THE CREATION. 

Having discoursed on the Creator, we now proceed to 
consider the Creation. 

Moses informs us that " In the beginning God created 
the heavens and the earth ; and that the earth was with- 
out form, and void, and that darkness was upon the face 
of the deep ; and that the spirit of God moved upon the 
face of the waters." St. Paul, in his Epistle to the He- 
brews, says, " The worlds were framed by the word of 
God, so that things which are seen were not made of 
things which do appear." — Heb. xi. 3. In his Epistle 
to the Romans, he says that " the invisible things of him, 
from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being 
understood by the things that are made, even his eternal 
power and Godhead." " In the beginning," according to 
Moses, and " from the creation of the world," according 
to St. Paul, must mean the same thing. We must not, 
therefore, understand the words " In the beginning" as 
being from all eternity, since there is no beginning to eter- 
nity, God alone being ^eternal. The expression only 
means a certain point in what we call time, when God 
made the heavens and the earth, and all things therein, 
We measure time by the seasons, and revolutions of the 
earth, and the heavenly bodies. Of eternity there is no 
measure. Our English poet, Cowley, in his poem 
Davideis, or the troubles of David, has happily expressed 
this : 



OS THE CREATION'. 



67 



" Nothing is there to come, and nothing past, 
But an eternal now does always last 
There sits the Almighty, first of all, and end, 
"Whom nothing but himself can comprehend ; 
"Who with his word commanded all to be, 
And all obeyed him, for that word was he. 
Only he spoke, and all that is 
From the womb of fertile nothing ris.' 

The schoolmen call eternity the " Nunc slans" or 
standing now, to distinguish it from the word now, as 
applied to time, and the poet probahly borrowed the 
thought from them. 

The scriptural account, therefore, is of what may be 
called an actual or proper creation of the world out of 
nothing which preexisted, and not the mere fashioning 
of the different things in the world out of matter eternally 
preexisting. This latter was a popular idea among the 
mycologists and philosophers of old. In this Moses con- 
tradicts them both, and asserts the infinite superiority of 
Jehovah over all other powers. In all the writings of the 
philosophers, and the fables and allegories of the poets 
and rnytliologists, chaos, or water, or some fluid mass, is 
. ttrii spoken of as the basis from which the great Mind 
drew all things. Sometimes it is made itself an eternal 
deity, out of whose womb all things came. Some of the 
philosophers maintained that it was impossible to create 
anything out of nothing. The words " Ex nihil, nihil 
Jit," or, "out of nothing, nothing comes," were ever in 
their month-, they having no adequate conception of the 
infinite power of Jehovah. Tims, Tliales, one of the 
earliest and wisest of the Grecian philosophers, who trav- 
elled into Egypt in search of knowledge, maintains that 
water was the " bads, or tir>t principle, of all corporeal 
things," luit that "(bid was the mind that formed all 
things out of it." The ocean, from whence all the gods 



68 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



and men were generated, according to the allegories of 
the poets, was chaos, out of which the heavenly "bodies 
were made. Adam himself came from a portion of its 
matter, and was afterwards worshipped as a god. 

According to the Chaldean cosmogony, or history of 
creation, " all things were darkness, water, and confusion." 
In the midst of this chaotic fluid existed various monsters, 
of horrible forms. At length the hour of creation arrived. 
The god Belus destroyed the misshapen animals and a 
gigantic demon which presided over them, divided the 
darkness from the light, separated the earth from the 
heavens, disposed the world in regular order, and called 
the starry hosts into existence. The human species was 
formed, by some inferior deities, out of the dust of the 
earth and waters of the ocean, and endowed with divine 
reason. 

Some of the above must have come from the descend- 
ants of Noah, and the rest added to it. According to 
Hermes Trismegistus, the Egyptians held that " In the 
beginning there was a boundless darkness in the abyss, 
but water and an ethereal spirit acted with a divine power 
in the midst of chaos. Then a holy light shone forth, 
and the elements were compacted together, with sand 
of a moist substance. Then the whole was, by all the 
gods, compacted together, and distributed into proper 
order." 

The Phoenicians, according to Sanchoniathon, though 
more atheistical than any others, yet had something in 
common with Moses. The principle of our world was a 
dark air and chaos, and these mixed together formed the ru- 
diments of all things ; then appeared the sun, moon, and 
stars ; afterwards, the fishes of the sea, and the whole 
finite creation. Last of all, two mortals were formed, the 
parents of the human race. 

Suidas tells us of an old Tuscan writer who described 



OS THE CREATION. 



the creation in the same order with Moses, only he makes 
it six thousand years, instead of six natural days. Accord- 
ing to the Persians, God created the world, not in six 
days, but in six times, amounting in the whole to one 
year. According to the Institutes of Menu, which are 
supposed to have been written about the time of Moses, 
the Ilindostanees hold that the universe at first existed 
" only in the divine idea, as yet unextended." God is there 
represented as a sole self-existing power from all eternity, 
but at length shone forth in person. Determining to pro- 
duce various beings from his own substance, he first, with 
a thought, produced the waters, and placed in them a 
productive seed, which became an egg, from which he 
himself was born, in the form of Brahma, the forefather 
of all spirits. From the supreme soul, or spirit, according 
to their system, emanated all things, — mind, conscious- 
ness, ike. This supreme power created a number of infe- 
rior deities, with divine attributes. It also gave being to 
time and its divisions, to the stars and planets, to the 
earth, and all things in it. Having thus created the uni- 
verse, he again retired into himself, from a state of energy 
to one of repose. What is this, but GolVs resting on the 
seventh day ? 

The Chinese called their first man Puoneo, and said 
that he was born out of chaos — the famous egg of the 
Eastern mythology. From the shell of the egg was 
formed, in the deep gloom of the night, the heavens 1 
from the white, the atmosphere ; from the yolk, the 
earth. Moses declares the same order — the heavens first, 
the earth next, and then the atmosphere. 

Suidas informs us that a sage of the Etrurian nation 
wrote a history, in which it is said that God created tlie 
universe in six thousand years, and that he appointed 
the same period of time for its duration. In the first 
period he made the heavens and the earth ; in the second, 



70 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



the visible firmament ; in the third, the sea and all the 
waters in the earth ; in the fourth, the sun, moon, and 
stars ; in the fifth, all living creatures in the sea and on 
the land ; in the sixth, man alone. 

As to the Greek cosmogony, the ancient Orphic author 
taught that " In the beginning were chaos and a thick 
darkness enveloping all things ; that the earth lay for a 
season invisible beneath the darkness ; that light then 
burst forth ; that the sun, moon, and stars all came out of 
chaos ; and that man was formed out of dust, and was 
endued with a rational soul by a supreme creative divin- 
ity. The ancient poet Linus is said to have asserted that 
there was once a time when " all things were, by nature, 
confusedly blended together." 

Iiesiod, the Greek poet, who is supposed to have writ- 
ten from nine to twelve hundred years before the Chris- 
tian era, admits that chaos was the first state ; then the 
earth out of it ; and the heavens out of the earth. He 
also speaks of Jupiter as the king and ruler of the immor- 
tal gods, and the creator of men and all things. Homer, 
also, in one place, makes Jupiter the creator of all things. 
Although it is inconsistent with his account of the birth 
of Jupiter, still it is in accordance with the general notion 
of some supreme being. We must allow to the poets and 
painters unlimited license. 

" Pictoribus atque poetis, quid libet audendi 
Semper fuit equa potestas." 

TESTIMONIES OF THE KOMANS. 

Although it has been justly said that the Hebrews 
drank of the fountain, the Greeks of the stream, the Ro- 
mans of the pool, in respect of knowledge, yet can we 
derive something from the latter in support of our argu- 



ON THE CREATION. 71 

merit. Yarro says, "Omnia noctis erant" — All things 
were night. Ovid says, " Omnia pontus erat " — All things 
were sea. Thus combining what Moses said, that " dark- 
ness was upon the face of the deep." But Ovid is much 
fuller upon the subject. The opening lines of his Meta- 
morphosis speak of a confused state of things, — earth, air, 
water, all mixed up together: 

" Iuem dixere chaos." 

Ilis poetry seems only a copy of Moses' account, which, 
as Ovid lived only a few years before the Christian era, 
must have been well known at Rome. His writings are 
full of one supreme God, though, like all the poets and 
philosophers, he speaks as certainly of other gods. 

In relation to the foregoing traditions and opinions of 
poets, historians, and philosophers, only for a moment let 
us suppose that some other than the Mosaic account had 
been the true one ; that some philosophical system, as that 
of the atheistic Democritus, who thought the world ori<ri- 
Dated by chance, or the fortuitous concourse of atoms 
whirling about in one immense void until they were 
formed into order, and that men, and all other things, 
were the residt of the same process, — and is there any 
one who, for a moment, would think that such agreement 
of all the nations or families of the world could have been 
drawn from that or any other 6y6tem ? Is not the account 
given by Moses the fountain and all others the streams, 
though corrupted in their passage through so many ages 
and BO many countries? 

It may be well here to allude to an opinion which finds 
place in many of the ancient traditions. We find in them 
mnch about a succession of worlds. The postdiluvian 
world was one of these successions. Another is to take 
place after the present world is destroyed by fire. The 
new world, of which Moses spoke as growing out of cha- 



72 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



os, was one made of the wreck of a former world. Chaos 
was not created at that time, but only refashioned. It is 
not pretended that they knew how many previous destruc- 
tions and reneAvals there had been, but, believing matter 
to be eternal, they left that to uncertainty. The resem- 
blance between Adam as the father of the old world, and 
Noah as the father of the new, — the one in connection 
with the chaos of the first world, and the other with the 
chaos of the deluge, — and the fact that each of them had 
three sons with whom to begin the replenishing of the 
earth, strengthened the notion of a succession of worlds. 
The doctrine of the transmigration of souls also helped on 
the doctrine, and it was believed that Noah and his sons 
were only the reappearing of Adam and his three sons, 
Cain, Abel, and Seth, these being the only ones mentioned. 
Messrs. Faber, Bryant, and other learned writers believe 
this to be the true key to the ancient mythology, so far as 
hero-worship is concerned. There is certainly much to be 
said in favor of the belief that these were, in process of 
time, the chief objects of worship. The worship of the 
heavenly bodies may have commenced earlier, but that 
was soon blended with the other. Traditions prevail in 
many nations, of the division of the earth between the 
three sons of Noah, and their being exalted to deities ; 
but Homer, who has systematized the pagan mythology, 
and arranged the gods in their proper order, has made this 
most clear and striking. 

He had previously spoken of Saturn and Rhea, the first 
of the beings of the earth. Then he makes Neptune give 
an account of the divisions of the earth, seas, and heav- 
ens, between the three sons : 

" Three brother Deities from Saturn came, 
And ancient Rhea, earth's immortal dame. 
Assigned by lot — our triple rule we know : 
Infernal Pluto sways the shades below. 



OX THE CREATION. 73 

i 

O'er the wide clouds, and o'er the starry plains, 
Ethereal Jove extends his wide domains. 
My court beneath the hoary waves I keep, 
And hush the roaring of the sacred deep. 
Olympus and the earth in common lie." 

Ilere we have probably the origin of the gods. They 
vrere Adam and his three sous, as supposed to reappear in 
Noah and his sons, the latter dividing the earth between 
them; and superstition, or poetry, sinking Neptune in the 
sea, banishing Pluto to the shades, and raising Jujaiter to 
heaven, and gradually investing him with the attributes 
of the great God of all. All admit that these three, — Ju- 
piter, Neptune, and Pluto, — were the great gods of the 
heathen world, though called by different names ; and that 
the other gods are divided under these into the celestial, 
terrestrial, infernal, and oceanic, all of them meeting 
sometimes on the common ground of the earth, which Ho- 
mer makes to belong to them all. 

From this digression on the rise of idolatry, into which 
we were led by some of the pagan traditions as to crea- 
tion, we return to the special object of this chapter, which 
was, to present a brief sketch of the Mosaic account of 
tin- six days of creation, in connection with traditions to 
be found in ancient authors. 

The first special act of God was the establishment of 
lij^ht, fur " the earth was without form, and void, and 
daA/i'.s.i was upon the face of the deep. And God said, 
Let there be light, and there was light."* Some suppose 
the light may have been mingled in small portions in cha- 
os, but wan now separated, and made to circulate around 
the earth. After this, a firmament, — the air, — as placed in 

• Longinus the Roman, in ti is celebrated treatiie on the Sublime, adduces 
this as a most remarkable instance of tbc sublime in composition, because of 
the brevity with which so mighty u work is set forth. Almighty power ulouc 
could do it. 



74 THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 

i 

the heavens, dividing the waters from the waters, — that 
is, the waters in the clouds from those in the deep, — which 
firmament he called heaven. Then the waters were gath- 
ered together' in one place, and the dry land appeared. 
Then the earth was made to bring forth grass, and herbs, 
and trees. Then was light distributed into the heavenly 
bodies, to give light upon the earth, and to divide the sea- 
sons, the days, and the } ? ears. Then were the fowls of the 
air and the fishes of the sea created. Then were all 
beasts and cattle, and every creeping thing on earth made ; 
and lastly, man. 

In relation to the above, it is worthy of remark, 
First, that God gave names to all those things over 
which man had no power, but permitted Adam to name 
all the inferior animals. Secondly, not a word is said 
about the creation or the existence of angels, or any other 
gods, with which the pagan mythologies are filled, and 
which men have been so prone to worship. Thirdly, God 
speaks of the heavenly bodies, — sun, moon, and stars, — 
and the uses for which they were designed, but not an in- 
timation is given that they were worthy of that adoration 
which was afterwards given to them by man. Fourthly : 
as it is said that God made all animals, even man himself, 
out of earth or water, it is not wonderful that so many 
traditions should prevail as to the origin of all things out 
of chaos, which was a mixture of earth and water, and 
that this chaos should be considered as the fountain and 
cause of all things. Thus Epicharmus says, "All things 
sprang out of chaos," and therefore he calls chaos the first 
of the gods. And Thales said water was the basis of all 
things ; and even Plato, and Cicero, with many of the 
philosophers, said that the earth was the oldest and chief 
of the gods which the great Supreme made. Hesiod said 
that all the gods sprung out of old ocean. According to 
his system, all creatures upon earth were more or less 



0> T THE CREATION. 



75 



gods.* Fifthly : Hoses says, after the work of each day- 
was over, that the evening and the morning were the first, 
or second day, and so on of all the rest. Now this mode 
of reckoning runs through many ancient systems, and is 
to be found in many ancient histories, and is supposed to 
refer to the fact that darkness preceded light. It prevailed 
among the Jews in the Saviour's time ; wherefore, as he 
remained three nights in the grave, it is called three days, 
although he lay in the grave only one whole day, and a 
part of another, — for on the morning of the third day he 
had arisen. Even in our own times the terms " se'nnight" 
and "fortnight," which, according to Tacitus, were used 
by the ancient Gauls, are used to signify seven days and 
nights, and fourteen days and nights. f Moses tells us that 
God rested on the seventh day from all his work. The 
institution of the blessed Sabbath has prevailed and still 
prevails among so many nations of the earth, living at 
such a distance from each other as to space and time, that 
we are forced to ascribe it to some early and common or- 
igin. Mr. Faber says that the division of time into weeks, 
prevails from the Christian states of Europe to the remote 
shores of Hindostan, and has equally prevailed among 
the Jews and Greeks, the Romans and Goths. Homer 
and Seeiod unite in ascribing to the Sabbath a peculiar 
-anctity; and Callimachus affirms, that on it all things 

• Lucan tells us, " Jupiter est quod cunquc vides, quo cunque, moveris :" this 
is the doctrine of pantheists, ancient and modern. St. 1'uul tells us, thut " in 
God we live, and more, and have our being," not that he lives, and moves, and 
has his bring in as. God has a distinct individual existence independent of ull 
other things. 

i The same customs, wc are informed by C;csar, prevailed among the Celtic 
nations. "All the (iauls," he says, " conceived themselves to be descended 
from Futhcr Dis (Pinto), and they uflirm it to have been banded down to them 
by the Druids; for Ibis reason lin y measure lime, not by the number of duys, 
but of nights. Accordingly they observe their birthdays, and the beginnings 
of months and years, in such a manner as to cause the day to follow the night." 
Tin- polished Athenians, according to Aulus Gellius, computed the space of a 
day from sunset to sunset. 



76 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



were finished. In the most barbarous nations of Africa 
they lay aside their occupations of fishing and agriculture 
for purposes of worship, one day in seven. 

To the foregoing, on the subject of the order of creation, 
I add the following, from the learned Shnckford, as to the 
opinions of some of the ancients. He says that the ancient 
heathen writers do not generally begin their accounts so 
high as the creation of the heavens and the chaos; they 
commonly go no further back than the formation of the 
chaos into a world. 

Anaxagoras said that all things were at first in one 
mass, but an intelligent being came and put them in 
order ; which Aristotle endorses, adding that all things lay 
in one mass for a vast space of time, but an intelligent 
agent came and put them in motion, and so separated them 
one from another. Sanchoniathon, he says, declared it was 
"the wind or the breath of the mouth of the Lord which 
brought all things into order." This agrees with the ac- 
count of Moses, that " the spirit of God moved upon the 
face of the deep." Shuckford thinks that Thales is mis- 
understood, when he is said to have made water the basis 
of all things ; that by water he meant only what many 
others did, " a thick fluid mass, or chaos ; and that Moses 
himself used a word which, though translated waters, 
meant chaos, or a fluid mass." He understands the Egyp- 
tians and Greeks to have held that " the heavens and the 
earth were at first in one confused and mixed heap ; that, 
on a separation, the lightest and most fiery parts flew up- 
wards and became the lights of heaven ; that in time the 
earth was drained of water, and that the moist clay of the 
earth, enlivened by the heat of the, sun, brought forth liv- 
ing creatures and men." In this corruption and perversion 
of the Mosaic account, we can readily see the remains of 
ancient truth. Mr. Shuckford dwells much on Plato's ac- 
count of creation. Plato, he says, refers to ancient tradi- 



ON THE CREATION. 



77 



tion, and not to philosophy, for the true account of the ori- 
gin of the world and of man, and that he speaks of Phoeni- 
cian and Syrian, that is, Hebrew fables, as the source of 
their knowledge of these things; that those who lived nearer 
to the gods were better acquainted with such things. He 
speaks of men as being made of earth and living in para- 
dise, and being at first of a double nature, male and fe- 
male, and afterwards divided. All these things suffi- 
ciently agree with Moses' account to assure us of a com- 
mon origin. 

COXCLCDING REMARKS. 

In the two first verses of Genesis we are told that God 
created " the heavens and the earth ; and that the earth 
was without form, and void." "We understand from this, 
that all which belongs to what is called the heavens and 
the earth, was created or made by God ; and as nothing is 
said of any preexisting matter, out of which this creation 
took place, we believe that God originated it out of noth- 
ing, as other scriptures clearly declare. We understand, 
by its being " without form, and void," that it was in a 
chaotic or confused 6tate, and void of trees, plants, and 
animals, and man himself, which God afterwards placed 
in it. Hut a question arises, how long this state of chaos, 
or " without form, and void," existed, before God brought 
all tilings into form or order, and filled it with all the 
plants and animals mentioned by Moses. Commentators 
among the Jews, the early fathers and more modern ones, 
differ en this subject: very sound ones say that there is 
nothing in the language of Moses requiring a belief that 
the creation and disposition of light, and the ordering of 
all things, and the peopling of the earth with man, 
animals, and trees, took place immediately after the crea- 
tion of the materials which formed the chaos ; that an in- 
definite period may have intervened between these acts of 



78 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



the Deity. Moses, they say, was not directed to reveal 
anything concerning J ehovah's previous actings, as to this 
or any other world, although the Eternal and Almighty 
Being must have been ever at work. 

Jewish and Christian commentators have not felt them- 
selves at liberty to speculate on the subject of God's deal- 
ings with this planet before the time with which the his- 
tory of man begins, except so far as to acknowledge the 
fact, that numerous traditions of the heathen world refer 
to the belief of many successive creations and destructions 
of this earth occurring during a long previous period of 
time, extending long beyond that assigned by Moses to 
the formation of our earth and its inhabitants. These 
destructions have been ascribed to fire and water, which 
brought such destruction upon the earth as to require re- 
newing by the Deity. Connected with these traditions 
have been accounts of immense animals and monsters, 
which have perished, and were not renewed with the re- 
newal of other things. During the present century my- 
thologists have dwelt more on the ancient traditions, 
which have chiefly prevailed in the East ; while geologists 
have been penetrating into the depths of the earth, to find 
out all that can be discovered, as to the history thereof, in 
the various strata beneath its surface, from only a few feet 
to some miles into the interior. On and near the surface 
they discover evident traces of men and beasts and plants, 
such as existed before and have existed since the deluge, ac- 
cording to the Mosaic account. But on reaching other strata, 
lying deeper and deeper in the earth, while finding nothing 
which belongs to man and many things made for his use, 
they find the remains and prints of animals and plants of im- 
mense size, and of a form unknown to us. They infer from 
hence, that they must have existed before the creation of 
man and other things, as related by Moses ; and that, in the 
indefinite period lying between the arrangement of the earth 



OX THE CREATION. 



79 



as it is now, and the first creation of its materials, it may 
have been the habitation of other animals and other plants, 
before man was made to be its proprietor and the present 
races of animals and plants were created for his use. 

Those who adopt this theory are ready to embrace the 
hypothesis of many, both ancient and modern, who think 
that the earth was once in a heated state throughout, as 
much of its interior is still, and that in the lapse of time 
the exterior became a crust, capable of sustaining animals 
and bearing trees of immense size. As the tropical cli- 
mates are now suited to the production of the largest ani- 
mals and trees, so the whole earth, in its previous and 
ni ne heated condition, was suited to those immense ani- 
mals whose fossil prints and skeletons have recently been 
discovered, also immense forests, which are now believed 
to be the great coal mines of the mountains, and in the 
bowels of the earth. It is not my intention to pursue this 
subject any further than my subject calls for. 

The scripture reveals nothing concerning it in the way 
of history, but it does prophesy a future destruction of the 
earth by fire; and the fact that bo much of that element 
and the foel for it is existing in the earth, makes that 
por-sililc ami probable which the scripture makes certain. 
The numerous traditions of the ancient nations in relation 
to previous destructions of the earth by fire and water, the 
discoveries of geologists as to great changes in the interior 
ami on the surface of the earth by fire and water, render 
it moat probable that previous to the creation of man, and 
other races of animals for his use, this earth bail been sub- 
ject to mighty revolutions, and may have been the habi- 
tation of gigantic animals ami tires now no longer to be 
seen except in the ruins thereof. 



80 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS AND TESTIMONIES ON THE SUBJECT 
MATTEK OF THIS CHAPTER. 

Sir Matthew Hale says, " The time and order wherein 
the production of light was, is said to be the first day. 
What portion of duration the disorderly chaos had before 
this first production is utterly uncertain, because not re- 
vealed. Possibly it might be a very long time, but the 
perfecting of the world in its formal order and constitu- 
tion seems to be in the compass of six natural days. He 
could, in the first moment, have produced the whole world, 
but he chose not to do it." He says that " Some Jews and 
cabalists thought the six days of creation to be of differ- 
ent length from our days, and from each other ; that the 
language of Moses was only a kind of analogical expres- 
sion to give the order of the production of all things, and 
not the precise time required." Sir Matthew thinks that 
the period of chaos was a long one, during which the 
spirit of God, as a powerful agent, was moving on the 
face of the waters, — that is, of chaos, — separating and dis- 
posing all things for the time when he should put them 
in form and order during six natural days. He is afraid 
of the theory of long indefinite periods, lest it should 
ascribe too much to a natural, and intimate a doubt as to 
God's ability to work by his own independent power, in 
days or moments, as well as in ages or more immense 
periods of time. The modern doctrine of some of our 
most learned and pious men was held, it seems, by some 
of the ancients, among the Jews as well as Gentiles. 

Professor Lewis, in his learned work on "The Bible 
and Science," says as to this doctrine of the antiquity of 
the earth's material, that "it was an ancient speculation, 
philosophical as well as traditional and poetical ; that in 
modern times the thought had slumbered until geology 



OX THE CREATION. 



SI 



had again awakened it." As to many things in connec- 
tion with it, he says, " They were discussed by the ancient 
mind with a keenness that modern philosophy fails to 
equal." He thinks that Hesiod has the germ of this idea 
of long periods, and Tirgil may refer to them in his 
"Magni Menses," and "Magnus Saeclorum Ordo," when 
speaking of the Sibylline verses. In his " Six Days of 
Creation," he adduces in proof of our great poet's cosmog- 
ony these lines in reference to chaos — 

" As yet the world was not, and chaos wild 
Reigned where these heavens now roll, where earth now rests" — 

calling it 

" The womh of nature, and perhaps her grave; 
The dark materials to create more worlds, 
By God ordained " — 

while the spirit of God 

" Dove-like sat brooding o'er the vast abyss." — Milton. 

Herodotus, the most ancient of all historians whose 
work* have come down to us except Moses, and who had 
gathered in his extensive travels the traditions of the oldest 
nations, bean testimony to this view of the antiquity of 
earth's materials. 

Rawlinson says, "Herodotus perceives the operation 
of the two agencies of fire and water in bringing the 
earth to its actual condition, lie regards the changes as 
having occupied enormous period- of time— tens of thou- 
sand- "I' war.-." ft''/ //■/,', ,..,,/, \v //, ,■"'/<>/ >■<,!. l.y/. 'Jl. 

Mr. Faber says of the words " In the beginning," it, 
the Hebrew original, is more explicit than our common 
English translation,* for the literal version of it runs 
as follows: u ln the beginning (bid created the very 
substance of the heavens and the very substance of 
6 



82 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



the earth," which he understands to include the mate- 
rial heavenly bodies. But he adds, " Prior to the work 
of the six days, as the researches of geology seem fully 
to have established, a series of great mundane changes, 
in the progressive organization of this globe out of the 
primevally created matter, had long been occurring, 
which all manifestly tended to perfection, each change 
successively tending to the final completion of a man- 
sion or permanent dwelling, suitable to the abode of 
sentient and intelligent beings." Mr. Faber admits the 
evidences of certain monsters in some of these changes, 
and even indulges the fancy that this earth may, in one 
of its best conditions, have been' the abode of the angels 
who fell, and who are 'now hovering around it with evil 
intent, and destined, in the future, to some subterranean 
abode of misery. This of course is all speciilation ; and 
as his work, "Many Mansions in the House of our Father," 
is the child of his old age, as he calls it, being written 
only a few years before his death, we must not be severe 
in our judgments, especially as the theory can neither be 
proved or disproved — the scripture not affirming or deny- 
ing it — and since such a man as Bishop Horseley, whom he 
greatly admired, indulged his fancy so much in relation 
to the interior of our earth, and so many pious and learned 
men are so positive in a belief in which Mr. Faber agreed 
with them, that this earth, when purified by fire, and 
covered with a pure, healthful, and fertile soil, is, one 
day and forever, to be the blissful abode of the saints, 
with the incarnate Saviour as their king. 

Among those who have most zealously argued in favor 
of the opinion that this earth is to be the future habita- 
tion of the saints, must be mentioned Professor Hitchcock, 
President of Amherst College, who, in his learned and 
deeply interesting work on the religion of geology, has 
given us his own views and those of such men as Chal- 



OX THE CREATIOX. 



83 



mere, Pve Smitli, and otliers of high standing in the theo- 
logical and geological world. 

Chalmers says, " The common imagination that we 
have of paradise on the other side of death, is that of a 
lofty ferial region, where the inmates float in aether, or 
are mysteriously suspended on nothing; where all the 
warm and sensible accompaniments, which give such an 
expression of strength and life and coloring to our pres- 
ent habitation, are attenuated into a sort of spiritual ele- 
ment that is meagre and imperceptible, and utterly unin- 
viting to the eye of mortals here below ; where every 
vestige of materialism is done away, and nothing left but 
certain unearthly scenes that have no power or allurement, 
and certain unearthly ecstasies with which it is felt to be 
impossible to sympathize." 

The general result of the reasoning of those who advo- 
cate tliis theory, sustaining it by many passages of scripture 
which they cannot think to be figurative, is, that it seems 
to them favorable to piety and promotive of faith to bring 
our future abode as near as possible to the present, and 
our future condition as near to that of earth as may con- 
iis1 with the perfection of happiness and holiness, and not 
to send us, as an altogether new race of beings, into some 
distant -| ot of creation. They reason as we do in behalf 
of the resurrection of the body, viz: That it unites this 
life and the next more closely when we know that in 
these bodies we shall be raised up— although improved and 
glorified; that we shall feel that we are continuous beings ; 
that our future condition will much depend upon our 
j. resent conduct. |!ut however this theory may prove, 
true or false, it seems to be generally agreed that we can- 
not turn into figure or allegory the many passages of 
scripture which speak of the present heavens passing 
away with a great noise, and the elements inciting with 
fervent heat, and a new heaven and a new earth, wherein 



84 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



dwelleth righteousness, being prepared for us here or else- 
where. Nor can it be questioned that there is much in 
ancient tradition favoring the idea of the dead, after a 
long interval, returning to this earth, and being con- 
nected with some new bodies. 



CHAPTER IV. 



ON THE CREATION OF MAN. 

Ox the sixth day of creation, every thing else being 
done, God said, " Let us make man in our image, after 
our likeness." So " God created man in his own image. 
In the image of God created he him. Male and female 
created he them." 

The particulars of the manner in which our first parents 
were formed are also stated in the second chapter of the 
book of Genesis. " And the Lord God formed man of 
the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the 
breath of life, and man became a living soul." And 
the Lord God said, " It is not good that man should be 
alone ; I will make him an help meet for him. And the 
Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he 
slept. And he took one of his ribs, and closed up the 
flesh thereof. And the rib, which the Lord God had 
taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto 
the man." Scarcely had our first father time to feel the 
loneliness of his condition, before God instituted that 
relation which has ever been felt to be 

" Best bliss of Paradise which has survived the fall." 

Looking upon them, and upon all the creatures which 
he had made for their use, over whom he had given 
them dominion, and upon all else which he had made 
in heaven and earth, he pronounced them not only yuod, 
but very good. 



86 THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 

And here we cannot but pause to say, how different 
this declaration from the doctrine of many of the ancients, 
who held that there were two eternally existing principles, 
the one of good, the other of evil, who were concerned 
in the formation of men, and the creation of all other 
things ; whereby it came to pass that there was a mixture 
of good and evil, pleasure and pain, beauty and deformity, 
in all things ; or else that there was something stubborn 
and malignant in matter, out of which men and all things 
were fashioned, which hindered the Almighty Architect 
from doing a more perfect work. " Non potest artifex 
mutare materiam," said Seneca. According to Moses, 
God complains of no such thing. Both the material out 
of which they were made, and the creatures made, were 
the work of his hands. 

Between cause and effect, the Creator and creature, we 
naturally and reasonably expect to see a resemblance, 
and that the Author should impress something of his 
own character and image on his work. " The heavens 
declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth 
his handy work." God is known by all his works. 
Man stands confessedly the first of all upon earth. This 
we might expect from the remarkable language used at 
his formation. 

God said " Let us make man in our image, after our 
likeness. So Gocl created man in his own image. In the 
image of God created he him." In these few words, the 
terms image and likeness are used, in relation to God's 
purpose and work as to man. If there was any doubt 
concerning the main points of resemblance between God 
and man, as man was first formed, an inspired apostle 
tells us it was " in knowledge and holiness." In other 
respects also, he was like unto God. He was lord of this 
lower world, having dominion over the beasts of the field 
and the fowls of the air. His person was noble and coin- 



ON THE CREATION OF HAN. 87 

manding above tbat of all other being9. God made biin 
upright in body as well as soul ; perfect in his kind. It 
should elevate and sanctify our thoughts to know that 
when God determined to manifest himself upon earth in 
the person of his Son, he chose the nature and form, not 
of some angel or archangel, but of man, becoming very 
man (as to " body and soul ") as well as very God, appear- 
ing in the truth of our mortal nature, though the ful- 
ness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in him. Yea, more ; 
we are assured that he will retain the same, though glori- 
fied and exalted, as king of saints in heaven forevermore. 
And even before the incarnation at Bethlehem he often 
appeared in the human form to some of his ancient 
people. 

If thus honored as to body, how much more as to soul, 
which was not made out of the dust, but breathed into 
us by the Spirit of God. In respect to the immortal 
soid, and its great capacities and noble affections, it is 
said that "man is only a little lower than the angels." 
'• Winged to fly at infinite, and find it there, where 
seraphs gather inine >rta!it y," 1 to what heights may he 
not soar, rising from glory to glory, from angel to arch- 
angel. We must believe that as man came from his 
Maker's hands, his faculties and affections and appetites 
were all rightly directed, and duly subordinate one to 
another and to God, and only required to be duly culti- 
vated and governed and exercised. 

Uow happy must our first parents have been, thus 
divinely constituted, loving God and each other! It is 
not too much to say of him, with the great dramatist, 
abating somewhat of its pagan cast: 

" What a piece of work in man; 
Bow noble in reason ! 

How Infinite in faculties! 

Jn form nnd moving, how express ami admirable I 



88 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



In action, how like an angel ! 

In apprehension, how like a god ! 

The beauty of the world ; the paragon of animals." 

— Shakspeaee. 

Or might we not address one of this favored race in 
the language of a more chaste and sacred poet, and say : 

" Think deeply then, O man, how great thou art ; 
Pay thyself homage with a trembling heart. 
"What angels guard, no longer dare neglect ; 
Slighting thyself, affront not God's respect. 
Enter the sacred temple of thy breast, 
And gaze and wander there a ravished guest. 
Gaze on those hidden treasures thou shalt find ; 
Wander through all the glories of thy mind. — De. Young. 

If any should say these are proud words and vain, to 
be spoken of such a creature as sinful, fallen man, we re- 
ply, that we ought to think of what he was, and might 
still have been, and yet may be, through the redemption 
wrought out for him. We should remember what may 
yet be seen : 

"The glorious fragments of a soul immortal, 
With rubbish mix'd and glittering in the dust." 

It has been justly said, 

" His nature no man can overrate, 
Nor underrate his merit." 

"With such exalted natures, and the high advantage of 
intercourse with God, our first parents, happy in each 
other's love, were placed in the choicest part of the earth, 
and in the choicest spot of the same. 

The garden of Eden, in the land of Eden, is generally 
supposed to have been in Armenia, one of the healthiest, 
most fertile, and picturesque parts of Asia ; where human 
nature has ever been seen in highest perfection of body and 



OX THE CREATION" OF MAX. 



89 



mind. The fair Circassian lias long dwelt in that land, who, 
for complexion and form, is the purest type of humanity. 
The nations which have issued from that region, journey- 
ing and settling along the range of mountains from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, have, as history will testify, been 
the most celebrated in mind and person of all others. 
It was meet that God should choose such a region (so 
auspicious for the continued excellence of the race) for 
the first pair and their descendants. 

Can we otherwise than suppose that God put forth his 
love and power in making them the most perfect speci- 
mens of the race, and that there is truth in the poet'i 
description, — 

"Adam, the goodliest of men since born 
His sons. The fairest of her daughters Eve " ? 

On this subject we have more to say when treating of 
the garden of Eden. 

"All things were here given them ricbly to enjoy." 
Tliey were required indeed to dress it, — that is, to culti- 
vate it : but it was "labor itself a pleasure" — " Labor ipse 
vi-luptas." Fruits and flowers, good for food, and beau- 
tiful to the eye, abounded in it. Inferior animals were 
the objects of their care and love ; and doubtless they 
returned this love. 

To love and obey him who made them and thus blessed 
them, was their duty ami happiness. Uut even in a state 
of innocence, in paradise, self-denial was necessary, for 
they were in a state of probation, and might lose the 
favor of God. One test of obedience was appointed. 
One only, of all the trees of the garden, bore forbidden 
fruit. " In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt Barely 
die," that is, lose my favor, and be subject to death when- 
ever the penalty shall be rccpiired. The sad sequel I 
need not mention now. 



90 



THE BIBLE AJSTD THE CLASSICS. 



The circumstances and the temptation I reserve for 
another chapter. All that I shall say in this place is, 
that God's favor was lost through disobedience, and sin 
entered into the world. At what period, after the crea- 
tion of man and his entrance into the garden of Eden, 
man sinned and was banished from this blissful abode, it 
is not for us to know. We cannot suppose that it was 
immediately after their creation, or that the act of trans- 
gression was committed under a surprise, ignorantly, or 
fogetfully. They were on trial, and had a full view of the 
consequences of disobedience, so far as losing the favor of 
God is concerned. Their consciences must have been ex- 
ercised. They were tempted, and yielded ; it was not 
accidental. That God who knows how to have compas- 
sion on the ignorant, and has made provision for sins of 
ignorance, would not have visited them and their pos- 
terity so heavily for an accidental or unavoidable trans- 
gression. Many a time may our first parents have 
looked upon that forbidden fruit and been tempted to 
eat thereof, but were faithful and obedient, and turned 
away from it. At length their resolution failed ; they dis- 
obeyed, and forfeited God's favor. But we have reason 
to believe that the favor was regained, by faith in the 
promised Deliverer, and sincere repentance and an holy 
life, during the long period to which the days of Adam 
were prolonged. 

The pious Montgomery, in his interesting poem, en- 
titled " The "World before the Flood," thus describes our 
penitent forefather : 

" With him our noblest sons might not compare, 
In godlike features and majestic air. 
Not out of weakness rose his gradual frame, 
Perfect from his Creator's hand he came \ 
And, as in form excelling, so in mind 
The sire of men transcended all mankind. 



OX THE CREATION" OF MAX. 



91 



But deep remorse for that mysterious crime 
AVhose dire contagion, through elapsing time, 
Diffused the curse of death beyond control, 
Had wrought such self-abasement in his soul, 
That he, whose honors were approached by none, 
"Was yet the meekest man beneath the sun. 
He walked so humbly in the sight of all, 
The vilest ne'er reproached him with his fall." 

From these general remarks on the creation and fall 
of man, we proceed, according to the plan of our work, 
to show how the main points of the Mosaic narrative are 
sustained by the traditions of other nations, and the opin- 
ions of the philosophers. 

Beginning with Plato, who always endeavored to find 
out the earliest traditions concerning the creation, we 
find him saying that " Our human nature was not of old 
what it now is, but different from it. For at first there 
were three sorts of human beings, not two only, as now, 
male and female ; but of the third sort nothing now re- 
mains but the name. This was common, and made up 
of the two others. But at length Jupiter determined 
t" divide tlii- hermaphroditic being into two, and the 
eonfleqnence was, that the one severed half ever bad a 
knging deeire for the other." 

Who can refuse to trace this ancient tradition to the 
formation of woman out of man, and which mu>t have 
eome down, not only through Moses, but through other 
channels j 

Mr. Faber, and other writers on mythology, have col- 
lected various passages from the most ancient books, in 
relation to the four ages. They relate to two series of 
ages — one before, the other after the flood, though the 
two arc sometimes mingled together, it is easy how- 
ever to perceive when the reference is to the Golden 
age of the first series — the age of innocence and happi- 



92 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



ness in paradise. The great father alluded to in these 
passages was Chronus, or Saturn, in the "Western world, 
and Menu in the Eastern world, each of whom was none 
other than Adam, or Noah. 

Plato informs us that the first inhabitants lived upon 
the spontaneous fruits of the earth, which was very fer- 
tile ; that they conversed, not only with God, but with 
the inferior domestic animals ; that these thiugs had come 
down from an ancient fable ; that our forefathers who 
lived immediately after the first revolution, — that is, the 
deluge, — had delivered these things ; that the depravity 
of man began at the close of the golden age. 

The ancient mode of living among the Greeks is thus 
described by Dicearchus, according to Porphyry : " The 
first men lived near to the gods, and were of a most excel- 
lent nature, and lived most holy lives. At that time noth- 
ing that had life was slaughtered ; and, from the felicity 
that then prevailed, the poets have drawn their pictures 
of the golden age." This, he says, was the age of Chronus, 
or Saturn, — that is, Adam. 

Hesiod's account of the golden age accords with the 
foregoing : " When gods and mortal men were bom 
together, the golden age commenced — the precious gift of 
the deities, who acknowledged Chronus as their sovereign. 
Mankind then led the life of gods, free from tormenting 
cares, and exempt from labor or sorrow ; — old age was un- 
known ; their limbs were braced with a perpetual vigor, 
and the evils of disease were unknown. When at length 
the hour of dissolution arrived, death assumed the mild 
aspect of sleep, and laid aside all its terrors. Every bless- 
ing was their own; the fruits of the earth sprang up 
spontaneoiisly and abundantly. Peace reigned, and her 
companions were happiness and pleasure." 

The manner in which he accounts for this change is 
also striking. " The first woman, endowed by the gods 



OX THE CREATION" OF 31 AX. 



93 



with every accomplishment, yet destined to he the ruin 
of prying man, opened a fatal casket, and let out sorrows 
and calamities incalculable. Too late, when her mis- 
chievous curiosity was satisfied, she replaced the lid, but 
sea and land were alike replete with evil. Hope alone 
remained at the bottom of the casket." 

The traditions of the Hindoos are to the same effect. 
They speak of the first of the human race as " The su- 
preme and happy inhabitants of the earth. The first age 
was called the age of perfection. There was no fraud or 
extortion ; every heart glowed with gratitude to the su- 
preme Creator. The gods frequently became incarnate, 
and held personal intercourse with mortals, and told them 
of a celestial region into which they were to be translated 
when their earthly probation was over. But, owing to 
luxurious abundance, men became corrupt, and fell into 
all kinds of wickedness, insomuch that Jupiter, disgusted 
with the scene, abolished the ancient order of things, 
and permitted the necessaries of life to be obtained only 
through the medium of labor." The Silver and Brazen 
■get then came on, when men were called "The moder- 
ately happy," and then " The least happy inhabitants of 
the world." 

The Chinese speak of two heavens, which is supposed 
to refer to the state of men before the fall, and after the 
delnge. During the first, a "pore pleasure, a perfect 
tranquillity reigned over all nature. There was neither 
labor, nor pain, nor sorrow, nor criminality. Nothing 
made opposition to the will of man. The whole creation 
enjoyed a state of happiness. Every thing was beautiful. 

Every thing was <r 1. All beings were perfect in their 

kind." In this happy age "Heaven and earth employed 
their virtues jointly to embellish nature. There was no 
jarring in the elements; no inclemency in the air. All 
things grew without labor, and universal fertility prevailed. 



94 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



The active and passive virtues conspired together to pro- 
duce and perfect the universe." But when the second 
heaven is mentioned, they say " The earth fell to pieces. 
The waters which were enclosed in its bosom burst forth 
with violence and overflowed it. Man, having rebelled 
against Heaven, the system of the universe was totally 
disordered." All these evils, they say, arose from man's 
despising the Monarch of the universe. " He would need 
dispute about truth and falsehood ; and these disputes ban- 
ished the Eternal reason. He then fixed his looks on ter- 
restrial objects, and loved them to excess. Hence arose 
the passions. He gradually became transformed into the 
object which he loved; and the Celestial wisdom entirely 
abandoned him. Such was the source of all his crimes, 
and hence arose those various miseries which are justly 
sent by Heaven as a punishment of wickedness." — See 
Ramsey on the Mythology of the Pagans. 

From this garbled account of the golden age, it is evi- 
dent that it is sometimes placed during the state of inno- 
cence in paradise, and sometimes as coming down after it, 
and sometimes as being after the deluge. We may fairly 
conclude that there was a period, both after the fall of 
man and after the deluge, when comparative innocence 
prevailed. 

The Zendivester of the Persians also furnishes a corrob- 
oration of the foregoing. Although this book, as it has 
been handed down, is of doubtful authorship and author- 
ity, yet the most learned agree that it contains much of 
ancient tradition, fragments of which were worked into it. 
Such is the opinion of Sir "William Jones, and Mr. Faber. 
The Persians held, according to these, that the world was 
created in six different periods of time, in the last of which 
man was formed by the immediate hand of God. Much 
happiness for a time prevailed ; but an evil one, Ahriman, 
after having dared to visit heaven, descended to the earth, 



0N~ THE CREATION" OF MAN. 



95 



assumed the form of a serpent, and brought along with 
him a number of wicked demons. The whole world was 
corrupted and thrown into confusion, until it was necessary 
to bring a deluge of waters to purify it. 

Ancient books of Hindostan, according to Mr. Faber, 
relate that "At the beginning of the world numerous ce- 
lestial spirits were formed, capable of perfection, but with 
the power of imperfection, both depending on their vol- 
untary choice." This could not have been borrowed from 
Moses, as he makes no mention of angels, either good or 
bad, in his history of creation and the first years of Adam 
and Eve. It must therefore have come from some other 
source, even from most ancient tradition. 

opinions of philosophers and poets. 

Simplicius, in his Comment on Epictetus, advances a 
similar opinion, saying that God, in order to fill the world 
witli beings, made some (the angels) immutably good ; and 
BOme of a middle nature liable to be perverted, but hav- 
ing great powers and good affections; also inferior orders, 
that so the universe might be perfect in having all sorts of 
beings in it. 

It would seem, then, that among ancient philosophers, 
as well as modern divines, the cause of man's fall was a 
matter of discussion. 'Fate,' 'necessity,' and 'free-will ' 
were te rms as much used among them, as ' predestination' 
and the 'self-determining power' are among us. Perhaps 
our first parents may have discussed them, and even im- 
agined that the fruit of the tree of knowledge would "ivo 
some insight into these. Milton represents some of the 
fallen angels as investigating these points: 

"Other* apart sat on a hill retired, 
In thought more elevate, and reasoned high 
Of Providence, fore-knowledge, free-will, and fate: 



96 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Fixed fate, free-will, fore-knowledge, absolute, 
And found no end, in wandering mazes lost." 

The philosophers, on the origin of evil, have been com- 
pared to the ancient Egyptians, who all witnessed the 
overflowing of the Nile, but for a long time could not find 
out the cause or spring-head of it. 

" Causa latet, vis est notissima." 

Porphyry says, "Let us at least join with our forefa- 
thers in lamenting this, that we are compounded of such 
disagreeing and contrary principles, that we are not able 
to preserve divine, pure, and unspotted inuocency." 

Hierocles more fully declares it. "The most men in the 
world are bad, and under the command of their passions, 
and are grown impotent through their propensity to earth, 
which great evil they have brought upon themselves by 
their wilful apostasy from God, and withdrawing them- 
selves from that society with him which they once enjoyed 
in pure light." 

Plato seems much puzzled to give a satisfactory account 
of evil, but he approaches so much nearer to the Mosaic 
account though still at a great distance, that some have 
supposed that, in his travels to the East, he had met either 
with the Hebrew scriptures or with the Jewish doctors, 
and had borrowed something from them. According to 
the learned Cudworth, Plato held that " Matter being eter- 
nal, and emanating from the supreme First Cause, was di- 
vested of all qualities which could produce evil ; and he 
accounted for evil by ascribing it to a third unmade princi- 
ple, between God and matter, calling it an irrational soul, 
or demon, which moved matter disorderly." Plato held 
that it is impossible that evils should be entirely destroyed ; 
and yet they are not seated among the gods, but will of 
necessity always infest this mortal region and nature. 
Wherefore he says we ought to endeavor to flee from 



ON THE CREATION OF MAN. 



97 



thence with all possible speed ; and that our flight, from 
hence, is this, — to assimilate ourselves to God as much as 
may be: which assimilation consists in being just and 
holy, with wisdom. Plato therefore ascribes the evils of 
men to " the necessity of imperfect beings." In other 
words, that " man is of an order of beings necessarily lia- 
ble to some evils ; not necessarily and irresistibly good 
and happy." The greatest art, he says, is to " bonify evils, 
and to tincture them with good." The Mosaic account is, 
that God made man good, (perfect, certainly, in his kind.) 
but that an evil spirit tempted him to disobedience ; and 
we know that the same spirit has ever since been the en- 
emy of man, even daring to assail the Son of man with 
his temptations. \Ye can readily see how this may have 
given rise to Plato's hypothesis of an evil unmade demon ; 
or disturbing matter, according to some ; or even to tho 
eternal principle of evil, as held by others. 



CHAPTER V. 



ON THE CREATION OF MAN PART SECOND. 

No apology is needed for pursuing the subject of the 
last chapter yet further. Its importance not only justifies 
it, but requires it. "The proper study of mankind is 
man." It has ever been spoken in praise of Socrates, that 
he brought philosophy down from airy speculations about 
the heavens and the gods to the consideration of man and 
his duty. Plato also, his disciple, though investigating 
every subject within the reach of the human mind, dwelt 
much on human nature and its origin, searching the most 
ancient records for his information. 

There are some questions growing out of the Mosaic ac- 
count of man's creation and fall, which are of deep inter- 
est to us, and are often discussed. To these we will de- 
vote a few pages. 

The first is, as to the goodness and justice of God in 
making an order of beings liable to fall, and permitting 
them to be tempted. 

The second relates to the appointment of such a trivial 
exercise of their fidelity as the eating or Dot eating of an 
apple. 

The third is, as to permitting such a low and loathsome 
reptile as the serpent to be gifted with speech, and to be 
used by Satan to deceive our first parents. 

The first of these questions is, Was it right ; was it consis- 
tent with the goodness of that God with whom all things are 
possible, and who could make holy angels and archangels as 



OX THE CREATION OF MAX. 



99 



easily as man, to create such a race as man, well knowing 
that he would fall, and with him all his posterity ? "Why did 
he not make him proof against any temptation, and strong 
enough at once to overcome the devil, or avoid him, though 
he should come in the garh of an angel of light ? To this it 
should he sufficient to answer, in the words of God hy one 
of his prophets, "\Yho art thou, O man, that repliest 
against God ? Shall the thing formed say to him that 
formed it, "Why madest thou me thus? Shall the clay 
say to the potter," &c, &c. ? 

But the falsity" of such reasoning against God may be 
made to appear, by proposing some other cpiestions, such 
as the following: AVhy did God make any inferior beings 
at all ? Why not make all at once of the highest conceiv- 
able order, even angels or archangels? Since all things 
are possible with God, why not make man, but also every 
beast of the field, and fowl of the air, and fish of the sea, 
yea, every insect, grain of sand, or drop of water, an angel 
or archangel at once, and thus till the whole universe with 
pin e, perfect, and blissful beings ] Such a train of thought 
pay surely discover to us the absurdities into which we 
plunge, when we undertake to question the wisdom of 
God ad to any of his works. 

lie has thought proper to fill Ids universe with innu- 
merable orders of beings, from the grain of sand or little 
insect, up to the highest principalities in heavenly places, 
and in the midst of it placed man, endowing him with 
reason, imparting knowledge to him, making him capable 
of standing, yet liable to fall, and, even in his present state, 
of sinking lower or rising higher. But some in their wis- 
dom would strike such an order of beings out of existence 
as unworthy of the Creator. 

As to the second objection, some ask, Was the test a 
suitable and worthy one? "Was it right to suspend the life 
and happiness of our iir.-t. parents on obedience to so triv- 



100 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



ial a tiling as the eating of an apple ? Was this a high 
moral code, worthy of the divine Legislator? Why did 
he not propose some great achievement, or painful sacri- 
fice, corresponding to the prize at stake ? In answer we 
say, What if some mighty exploit or great suffering had 
been required in order to the continuance of that life and 
happiness, which God could so easily have done without 
any cost to humanity, how much greater the complaint 
against God as an hard taskmaster ! Does it not become 
us to believe that God, who had a perfect right to propose 
what test or act of obedience he pleased, would choose the 
most suitable one, neither too trivial nor too severely try- 
ing? Even our own reason may suggest some things 
showing the peculiar adaptedness of the one complained 
of by some. Man is composed of two parts — body and 
soul, the material and the spiritual — each having faculties 
and members which must be exercised and tried in order 
to the perfection of our nature and the service of God. 
The appetite for food is one of the strongest of our animal 
natures, and a large share of the sin and misery of man 
grows out of the undue indulgence of it. The forbidden ap- 
ple was not only beautiful to look on, but was pleasant to 
the taste, and our first parents were urged to taste and see 
how good it was. They were encouraged so to do by be- 
ing assured that it was good to make them wise, even 
wiser than God had thought proper to make them. Curi- 
osity, and the ambition to be wise, are powerful principles 
in human nature. They were told of other beings, called 
gods, higher than themselves, and knowing more, into 
whose state they might be exalted by eating the forbidden 
fruit. To resist these temptations was no trivial proof of 
allegiance to God, though the yielding to them was great 
folly and sin. Let us try the force of the objection made, 
by considering what more suitable proof of obedience 
could have been required. 



OX THE CREATION OF MAX". 



101 



Let us take the great and holy moral law issuing from, 
the lips of Jehovah himself, and see what can be found in 
it more worthy of use in this case. As to the two first, 
forbidding idolatry, they could not be used, since idolatry 
had not found its way into the world at that time. As to 
the third, surely swearing was not practised. As to the 
fourth, surely there was no temptation to violate the Sab- 
bath, when all things abounded with so little labor. As 
there were no children at that time, there was no tempta- 
tion to violate the fifth commandment, enjoining filial 
obedience. AVere we to examine all the rest it would be 
seen that they were equally unsuitable as tests, if not ab- 
solutely incapable of application, under the circumstances 
in which the first parents of the human race were placed ; 
whereas the desire for delicious fruit, and the curiosity to 
know more, and the ambition to rise higher, were the 
proper subjects for probation and trial. 

Let us remember that when the Son of God, the second 
Adam, through whom we hope to regain all and more 
than all which was lust by the first, came into the world, 
Satan was permitted to tempt him, through the same ap- 
petites of body and mind. In the mountain, where he 
fated for forty flays and nights and was beset with hun- 
ger, he tempted him to sin in order to get food, by urging 
him to turn stones into bread, and thus break the appoint- 
ed fast, lie addressed himself to the love of glory and 
power, by urging him to cast himself down from the pin- 
nacle of the temple, and to worship him, falsely promis- 
ing all the kingdom- of the earth. 

The third objection is, that it was unworthy of God to 
ehooee such a low, odious, and contemptible reptile as the 
Berpent, ami endow him with speech in order to tempt 
our first parents. 

We shall have more to say on this subject, when wo 
come to consider the history of the serpent and Satan, in 



102 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



a separate chapter. For the present, suffice it to say, that 
the serpent was only the organ of a mighty spiritual being, 
the father of lies, and the author of all mischief. 

Moreover, as we must not judge of Adam in his 
first state, fresh from the hands of God, by what we see 
of him in some of his debased descendants, so we must 
not determine what the serpent of paradise was, from 
what the odious reptile now is, since the curse of God has 
glued him to the earth. Concerning the original perfec- 
tion of man, as coming from his Maker's hand and pro- 
nounced to be very good, we are liable to misunderstand 
the term. God alone, so far as we know, is perfect in the 
highest sense of the word, — that is, infinitely perfect. He 
is perfect, in that he existed from all eternity, and created 
all things. He is perfect in all his attributes of holiness, 
power, knowledge, &c. All other beings and things are 
comparatively imperfect. His very angels he charge th 
with folly. " The heavens are not clean in his sight." 
" The moon shineth not in his presence." Innumerable 
orders of beings, perfect in their kind, but imperfect by 
comparison with him, were made by him. Some angels 
have fallen ; others have not. Man, though inferior to 
some orders — as, for instance, the angels who have kept 
their estate, whatever he may be as to those who fell — is 
yet superior to innumerable orders of beings who fall 
below him in the scale of creation, and has, even in his 
fallen state, great cause for rejoicing, when redemption is 
taken into the account. It has been well said, that 
" Every child bringing into the world the guilt of Adam's 
sin, brings along with it the benefits of Christ's mediation 
and death." 

When we remember all that God has done for us by 
his Son and Spirit, in our fallen condition, we should hot 
complain, but feel that we are brought under renewed 
obligations to him. If the devil be still our enemy, 



OX THE CREATION OF MAN. 



103 



Christ is our friend, and he who is for us is greater than 
he who is against us — greater than all who are against us. 

Though man, especially in his fallen state, must be liable 
to temptation, or trial, in this place of probation, yet it 
is not a temptation or trial which justly subjects God to 
the charge of being the author of sin. God utterly 
disavows the authorship of sin. He made the earth good, 
and out of nothing, and not out of some unmanageable 
malignant matter, according to some philosophers. He 
made a good man out of the good earth, as to his body, 
and breathed a good 60ul into him. But he made him a 
rational being, to obey his Maker ; not of force and ne- 
cessity, but willingly, and of choice. Good and evil, obe- 
dience and disobedience, were set before him. God did 
not tempt him to choose the evil. The account of it is 
this, " Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted 
of God : for God cannot be tempted of evil, neither 
tempteth he any man : but every man is tempted when he 
is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed." 
I St. Paul calls this hist u a law in our members war- 
ring against the law in our minds," inclining us to evil 
when we would do good. The heathen poets speak in 
like manner : 

" Nitimur in vutitnrn semper cupimus qnc ne^'uta, 
video meliora, proboqne, deteriora se<juor." 

The heathen knew not where to go for help. Chris- 
tians know that "there is a law of the spirit of life in 
Christ Je.-us, which makes free from the law of sin and 

death." 

The following pas-age from the celebrated Sir "William 
Jones, after considering the Eastern systems which speak 
of the formation of man as an order of beings capable 
of standing yet liable to fall, is much to the point: "And 
it" perfect justice be, as it is most indubitably, an essential 



104 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



attribute of God, the first pair must have been gifted with 
sufficient wisdom and strength to be virtuous, and, as far as 
their nature admitted, happy, but entrusted with freedom 
of will to be vicious, and consequently degraded." 

The following passages from two of our most distin- 
guished English poets, on the subjects just discussed, will 
not be without interest to our readers. 

Milton, in his celebrated poem " Paradise Lost," thus 
speaks of the creation of angels : 

" Such I created all the ethereal powers 
And spirits, both them who stood and them who failed. 
Freely they stood, who stood, and fell, who fell." 

Speaking of the fall of man, he makes God to say, 

" They themselves decreed their own revolt." 

"If I foreknew, 
Fore-knowledge had no influence on their fault." 

Comparing the fall of angels with that of men, he says, 

" The first sort, of their own suggestion, fell, 
Self-tempted, self-depraved. Man falls, deceived 
By the other first. Man therefore shall find grace, 
The other none." 

" Man shall not quite be lost, but saved who will ; 
Yet not of will in him, but grace in me, 
Freely vouchsafed." 

" Some have I chosen of peculiar grace, 
Elect above the rest." 

But he warns against prying into the decrees of Heaven : 

" Heaven is for thee too high 
To know what passes there. Be lowly wise ; 
Think only what concerns thee, and thy being." 



OX THE CREATIOX OF MAN. 



105 



As to discussion about the secret things of God, be says, 
" Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy." 

As to tlie mucb discussed question about the effect of 
eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, 
Milton has probably said as much in two lines as we shall 
ever find out : 

" Since our eyes 
Opened, we find, indeed, and find we know 
Both good, and evil. Good lost, and evil got." 

PASSAGES FEOM POPE'S ESSAY ON MAX. 

This is supposed to have been a poetical paraphrase of 
one of Lord Bolingbroke's works — an infidel production, 
and which, it is said, the poet did not understand himself, 
if his Lordship did. lie calls Lord Bolingbroke 

"My guide, philosopher, and friend." 

Though Pope was n<>t one of the infidels of that day, 
yet there is little of Christianity in his writings, and much 
of the i in pure. In his " Universal Prayer to the Father of 
All," he addresses him as worshipped 

'• By saint, by savage, and by sago, 
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord " — 

as though all were alike the same. Nevertheless, in 
spite of his lordship's scepticism, and the poet's ignorance, 
there are some excellent tiling in the >% K.-siy on Man," in 
relation to the subject of this chapter. He speaks of man 

" As a mighty maze, yet not without a plan." 

As to the objections made to some things in the world, 
he says, 



106 THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 

" All partial ill is universal good, 
All are but parts of a stupendous whole." 

" 'Tis but a part we see and not the whole." 

He speaks of man as 

"That chain which links the immense design, 
Joins heaven and earth, the mortal and divine." 

God only 

" May tell why Heaven has made us as we are ; 
Why formed so weak, so little, and so blind. 
There must be somewhere such a rank as man." 

Bat some are dissatisfied : 

" Men would be angels, angels would be gods." 
To those who ask, 

" Why is not man a god, and earth a heaven ? " 

he replies, 

" Who ask, and reason thus, will scarce conceive 
God gives enough while he has more to give." 

It was perhaps to some such feeling in our first parents 

that the devil addressed the temptation, 

i 

" Ye shall be as gods." 

We conclude our poetic testimonies with a passage 
from Dr. Young, descriptive of man. 

" From differing natures, marvellously mixed, 
Connection exquisite of distant worlds, 
Distinguished link in being's endless chain, 
Midway from nothing to the Deity. 
Dim miniature of greatness absolute." 

Concerning Pope's " Essay on Man," Dr. Young has well 
said, 



02s THE CREATION OF MAX. 



107 



" Man too he sung : immortal man I sing. 
Oh ! had he pressed his theme, pursued his track, 
Which opens out of darkness into day ; 
Oh ! had he mounted on his wings of fire. 
Soar d where I sink, and sung immortal man, — 
How had it blest mankind and rescued me ! " 

On the whole we may say, divines, poets, and philosophers 
generally agree, that if God had not given a certain free- 
dom of will and action to man, but had by irresistible in- 
fluences made it impossible for him to fall, or had set a 
strong guard of angels around paradise to prevent the en- 
trance of the evil one, he would not have dealt with him 
as a rational and accountable creature, and man would 
not have been a link of beings, on probation, lying be- 
tween perfected angels and the lower animals of earth. 

6IE MATTHEW HALe's VIEWS ON THE CREATION OF MEN. 

Having occasion to quote the opinion of this great man, 
of whom it is written, " A light, saith the Bar ; a light, 
saith the Pulpit," because of his eminence in theology 
M well BB in jurisprudence, and who was Chief Justice of 
England during four .-iiccc-m ve reigns, if Cromwell's gov- 
ernment may be reckoned as one of them, I mention a 
circumstance winch I have somewhere read concerning 
his great work, "The Primitive Origination of Man," 
from which the following pa.-sage.> are taken. Unknown 
to any one, he .-pent the leisure hours often years in pre- 
paring it. When completed, he eau.»ed it to he placed in 
the hands of Archbishop Tillotsoii and one other learned 
divine, without permitting them to know its authorship, 
in onh r to find out their honest judgment of the ,-ame. 
After a careful examination of it, they agreed that there 
wiis hut one man in the kingdom who could write it, and 



108 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



that man Sir Matthew Hale. They informed him of this 
and insisted on its publication. Much as has been writ- 
ten on the various points treated of in his work, during 
nearly two centuries since its appearance, but little of im- 
portance has been added to it. 

As to the opinion of the philosophers concerning the 
origin of man, he says : " Aristotle, and even Plato, 
seemed sometimes to believe in the eternal generation of 
men, though at others asserting the contrary. Many 
affirmed it positively." 

Sir Matthew uses his logical powers with great ability 
in showing the absurdity of such an hypothesis. He also 
exposes the idleness of the theory of Epicurus and Lucre- 
tius, who held the origin of men to have been derived 
from the fortuitous concourse of atoms, with, perhaps, 
some seminal particles in them. He speaks of those who 
thought that man issued from rich and slimy earth, espe- 
cially that of Egypt on the Nile, after a long incubation 
or resting of the waters, with a certain conjuncture of the 
planets favoring vegetation, or the beginning of life. 

Ovid seems to refer to both of the foregoing in his 
Metamorphoses : 

" Natus homo est, sive hunc divino semine fecit, 
Ille opiferx rerum, mundi melioris origo ; 
Sive recens tellus, seductuque nuper ab alto, 
.ZEthere cognati retinebat saemina coeli." 

Here is a distinct recognition of the tradition of the 
heavenly origin of man. 

Others there were, as Zeno Citicus, who came nearer 
to scripture, and ascribed the creation of man to the fiat, 
or command, the bcene placitum, or good-will, of God. 
They generally agreed that he was made by God out of 
moist earth, by the instrumentality of heat and light. 

"Again," he says, " some affirm, ' Semper homines 



OX THE CREATION" OF MAX. 



109 



fuisse ; nec unquam nisi en hominibus natos.' Others 
maintain, 'Fuisse tempus cum homines non essent.'" In 
otlier words, " Some say that men always were in eternal 
succession from other men ;" while others say there was a 
time when men were not, but that their origin was to be 
ascribed to nature — that is, were made, not immediately 
by the hand of God, but by some natural process or de- 
velopment, as vegetables and lower animals seem to be. 

In reply to those who object to the present state of things 
— that it ought to have been better — that if God be es- 
sentially good and perfect he should have been filling the 
universe with worlds and happy beings from eternity — he 
answers, that " In his acts of beneficence God is not neces- 
sitated by his own perfection to act 1 ad ultimum posse,' — 
that is, to do the utmost possible good, but is guided by the 
freedom of his own will," as to the time and manner of 
doing anything. As to the image and likeness of God in 
which man was made, he considers that it was a moral and 
intellectual one, and not a corporeal one, after the pattern 
nt' ( 1 1 riit in the flesh, as some suppose. He says: "In the 
language of scripture and the ancients, in the work of 
QMntion man was made like unto God ; but in the work of 
redemption the Son of God was made like unto man." 
"God," he says, "gave man a moral law, implanting it 
in his heart, and which is the Original of that which yet 
remains in men in some degree, though so much weak- 
ened and oh-cnre<l |,y the fall. lie also gave him a posi- 
tive law, requiring obedience on pain of death. Left to 
the liberty of his own will, though having sufficient abil- 
ity to obey, he fell, through temptation of Satan and his 
o\\ n -eiiMiality and ambition." 



110 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



OTHER TESTIMONIES. 

On the subject of man's dignity and high station among 
the works of God, we must remember the apostle's injunc- 
tion not to think too highly of ourselves, but soberly. 
There have been those who seem to think that they really 
are what the serpent promised our first parents they 
should be, — that is, gods. I remember being much 
shocked, when a youth, at the saying of a noted infidel, 
that he was as much God as any other being in the 
world. I did not then know that there had been some 
men, even in the days of Aristotle, who maintained that 
there were no greater beings in the world than them- 
selves, and whom Aristotle laughed to scorn for their 
folly. Herodotus, also, has well said : " God allows no 
one to have high thoughts but himself." " He loves to 
bring down everything that exalts itself." 

And yet we must not degrade our nature below the 
rank which God has assigned to it, which is one, even in 
our present state, only a little lower than that of the 
angels. 

The following passage in Mr. Trench's lectures is no 
extravagant eulogy on man's position in the earth : " Scrip- 
ture is no story of the material universe. A single chap- 
ter is sufficient to tell us that ' God made the heavens and 
the earth.' Man is the central figure there, or, to speak 
more truly, the only figure ; all which is there beside 
serves but as a background for him. Such he appears 
there in his unfallen condition; and even now, when 
only a broken fragment of the sceptre with which once 
he ruled the world remains in his hand, such he is com- 
manded to regard himself still." 

Our great theological poet describes even the prince of 
the fallen ones as still retaining something of his past 
high rank : 



ON THE CREATION" OF KAN; 



111 



" His form had not yet lost 
All its original brightness, nor appeared , t 

Less than archangel ruined, and the excess 
Of glory obscured." 

"We know not what was the difference between man 
and the angels that fell, before their fall ; but this we 
know, that the relation we now bear to their great leader 
is that of children to a parent. " Te are of your father 
the devil" is our lineage and character, and our hnal and 
everlasting doom will be the same with his and his rebel- 
lious crew. The same place is prepared to be the eternal 
abode of the impenitent wicked among men, and the devil 
with his angels. St. John speaks of the devil as being 
" created in the truth, but who abode not in it." St. Peter 
.-]> eake of "the angels who sinned," and St. Jude of the 
"angels who kept not their first estate." All that is said 
of them would lead us to suppose them to be very like 
unto man. So as to the unfallen angels. Man, in his 
natural state, especially as to his body, and even Christ 
as to his natural body, were only a little lower than the 
angela. In his glorified state, man will be e<pual to 
angels. 

•• When we are informed," 6ays one, "that man was 
made after the image of God, this almost amounts to a 
declaration that his was the highest style of created being, 
and that no higher type, or pattern, could ever appear. 
The original, of which he is a copy, is the highest possi- 
ble, and the artist being (iod himself, we may be sure it 
was executed in the very highest style." The crime of 
murder is ever represented as most heinous, because man 
was made in the image of (iod. Clothed in a spiritual 
bod/, Christ is exalted to the right hand <>|' ( iod, tar above 
all principality and power, and might and dominion, and 
every name that is named, not only in this world, but in 
that which is to come. 



112 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



If it be said that man is very like to the inferior ani- 
mals in many parts of his structure, and that this detracts 
from his high dignity, it is replied, that this is only a 
confirmation of the doctrine of man's high order. " It is 
because they are all the hand-work of the same artist " 
that they are so much alike, and so perfect in their kind. 

" The human," says Fairbairn, in his excellent work on 
the " Typology of Scripture," " is the pattern form of all 
animal existences. In the structure of all other animal 
forms there are observable striking resemblances to that 
of man. Each man, in himself, is not the microcosm of 
the old fanciful philosophers, but something greatly more 
wonderful — a compendium of all animated nature, and of 
kin to every creature that lives." " Man," says another, 
" is the sum-total of all animals." Professor Owen says, 
" All the parts and organs had been sketched out, in an- 
ticipation, so to speak, in the inferior animals." What a 
piece of work is man ! we may truly say — how fearfully 
and how wonderfully made ! But while he thus soars 
above all the animals of earth, it is his connection with 
heavenly beings that constitutes his chief glory. He be- 
longs to the whole family of God, which is both in 
heaven and earth ; and if he so resembles the inferior ani- 
mals of earth, much more does he resemble the higher 
ones in heaven. But it is his connection with the great 
Head that constitutes his crowning glory. " How could 
God," says Neander, " place himself in so near a relation 
to individual men (as in the incarnation), and ascribe to 
them so high a dignity, if they were mere perishable 
appearances, if they had not an essence akin to his own, 
and destined for immortality ? " 



CHAPTER VI. 



INTIMATIONS OF THE TRINITY AT THE FORMATION OF MAN. 

In the 26th verse of the first chapter of Genesis, it is 
written, " And God said, Let us make man, in.our image, 
after our likeness." 

Before dismissing the subject of man's creation, it may 
be well to inquire briefly into the meaning of the words, 
" Let iv) make man." Some of the Jewish doctors main- 
tain that this was a real consultation, held with such 
angelic beings as God might think proper to employ in 
man's creation. This of course cannot be accepted by 
Christians. Some modern expositors regard it as only a 
majestic form of speech, such as is used by some kings 
who use the plural number in giving commands, or 
addressing their subjects. But as there were no men, 
and of ourse no great men at the time this was spoken, 
so there was no such manner of speech then or for ages 
after Moses; for in order to assert great authority, the 
custom among kinirs was to u-e the tir»t person. So it 
iviii formerly in England, and is in some countries to this 
day. 

The general belief is that there is reference here to the 
three persons of the ever ble.-.ied Trinity, as received by 
Christians. The word Klohim, in the Hebrew, which is 
translated God, is in the plural number,' and used with a 
plural verb. While the Scriptures, from lirst to last, 
assert the unity of God against all the notions and wor- 
ship of the heathen, yet do we tind God acting towards 
man in what Christians, for the want of something more 
8 



114 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



intelligible, call persons. We read of the Spirit of God 
moving on the face of the waters at the beginning, and 
bringing all things into order. This Spirit is often spoken 
of in the scriptures, sometimes under the name of the 
Holy Ghost. We read also that Christ was the Logos or 
Word, by which, " in the beginning, God made all 
things, and without whom nothing was made." He it 
is that was called " the angel of God's presence," who 
watched over the children of Israel in all their journey- 
ings, and so often appeared to God's chosen servants. 
These three persons, though declared to be one God, and 
not at all interfering with the unity of the Godhead, are 
often united in the apostolic benedictions of the New 
Testament, where the Grace of the Father, Son, and 
Spirit is invoked. The learned Dr. Whitby says, that 
from the times of the apostles, almost all of the fathers 
understood these words as applied to the three persons of 
the Trinity. Learned Jewish rabbis maintain the doc- 
trine of the Trinity as drawn from the word Elohim, or 
Alohim, as used in this and other passages, and declare 
that such was the understanding of the ancient Jews. 

According to the plan of this work, we shall briefly pre- 
sent the evidences of any tradition in relation to it which 
may have come down through other nations, or of any 
opinions bearing a resemblance to it. The number three 
has certainly been a most favorite one in the heathen 
world, as may be seen in all their sacred books. The 
triads of the Gentiles have been the subject of much dis- 
cussion in the Christian church. The learned Mr. Faber, 
who has written so voluminously on pagan mythology, 
and given such particular attention to this subject, and 
pays so much respect to concurrent tradition, does not 
think what are called the triads of the Gentiles are 
derived from original revelation and tradition, though 
he believes that the Trinity is referred to in the words 



INTIMATIONS OF THE TRINITY. 



115 



" Let us make man." The result of his inquiries is, that 
the triads of the Gentiles have the same origin with the 
pagan idolatry, which elevated the sons of Noah, under 
the names of Jupiter, Xeptune, and Pluto, to the first rank 
of Deities. These three are mingled with all the mytholo- 
gies of the heathen world. The Persians had their three- 
fold distribution of the Deity, assigning to Oromasdes, 
Aramanes, and Mithras different works, calling Mithras 
the mediator, or middle. The Chaldeans have also some- 
thing of this kind. They say that " in the whole world 
shineth forth a Triad or Trinity, the head whereof is a 
M'Miod or Unity." Whether these mythological tradi- 
tions or opinions were the source of that Trinity which 
was set up among the heathen philosophers, and which at 
length, about 400 years before Christ, settled down into 
what was called the Platonic Trinity, we cannot say; but 
certain it is that Plato and other philosopher's spoke of 
three operations of the Great Deity, in such a way as in 
after times misled many of the early Christians into 
a belief that his system differed but little from the Bible, 
and caused much anhappiness in the Christian church. 

The learned Cndworth, in his " Intellectual System," 
Bays, "That some philosophers called the highest, Xumen, 
the tii-: god; Intelligence, the second god ; the Mundane 
Bold, or animated world, the third." " Plato's eternal 
gods/' he says, " were not independent, but two of them 
were derived from one eternal principle." 

An ancient writer, Xumerius, commenting on Plato's 
Trinity, calls " the Father the Jir»t ', ; the Maker of the 
world tin xkdiiiI • the world it-elf //c t/iiitl." 1 Another 
says that this Trinity was not the invention of Plato, as 
Plato himself acknowledges, but that Parmenides taught 
it before him; and as Parraenides was a disciple of Py- 
thagoras, and Pythagoras drew much from the system of 
Urpheus, it may be traced up to that. Now, Pythagoras 



116 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



taught that " The first one or unity is above all essences " 
— " the second is ideas, and intelligible " — the third is the 
soul of the world, and partakes of the two first." 

According to the ancient Orphic system, Phanus, Uranus, 
and Chronus were three beings, or gods, or principles, 
corresponding to the Platonic Trinity, and probably sug- 
gested the idea. 

The Samothracians also had anciently their Trinity of 
gods, calling thein by an Hebrew name, Cabbarini, " the 
mighty gods." 

Aristotle says that the number three was a sacred 
number among the ancient pagans—" Wherefore from 
nature, and as it were observing her laws, have we taken 
the number three, making use of the same in the sacri- 
fices to the gods, and other purifications." 

Proclus also says, concerning the Trinity of the philoso- 
phers, that " It was a theology of divine tradition, coming 
first through the Jews, though differing in some things." 

Now, when we find so much in the ancient traditions 
and mythologies about the great Father triplicating him- 
self, and becoming three gods, and so much among the 
philosophers about three principles, or beings, all eternal, 
and two proceeding from the first great one, and all three 
infinitely above all other gods, the thought will force itself 
upon us that there was either some original revelation 
and tradition about it, or else that there was something 
in the human mind which was always calling for some 
such distribution of the divine attributes, among what 
Christians call the persons or hypostases of the Deity, 
which were omoousias, or consubstantial with each other, 
so as not to interfere with the unity of th e self-existent 
and eternal God, from whom all things proceed.* 

* It may have some effect on our young Americans, to adduce the following 
opinion of perhaps the greatest intellect this country has ever produced. The 
late Daniel Webster said, " I believe that God exists in three persons. This 



INTIMATIONS OF THE TRINITY. 



117 



Such was the opinion of the candid and learned Dr. 
Cudworth, who, after a full consideration of the Platonic 
Trinity, and after showing the difference between it and 
the Scriptural Trinity, nevertheless acknowledges that 
there is " a wonderful correspondence between them, and 
that this parallelism between them might be of some use 
to satisfy those amongst us who boggle so much at the 
Trinity, when they shall find that the freest wits among 
the pagans, and the best philosophers, who had nothing 
of superstition to determine them that way, were so far 
from being shy of such an hypothesis, that they were 
even fond of it." To this it may be added, tliat although 
many of the early Christians were led into a snare by it, 
yet the favor shown to it by many learned men proves 
that there must have been no slight resemblance between 
the systems ; enough to justify our reference to it in this 
work. 

The following, taken from one of our American periodi- 
cals, is worthy of insertion on the subject treated of in 
the foregoing pages : 

AN CI EXT JEWISH TRINITY. 

"The proof of this doctrine of the Trinity must unques- 
tionably be derived from the scriptures alone ; but when 
a doctrine of this extraordinary nature is presented to the 
mind, we naturally feel a strong curiosity to know the 
manner in which the same has been regarded by others, 
particularly by such as have lived before us ; and pecu- 
liarly by the ancient members of the Jewish and Chris- 
tian churches. Nor is this a matter of mere curiosity. 
If the doctrine of the Trinity were first now discovered 

I learn from Revolution nlonc. Nor id it any objection to thi* belief, that I 
cannot comprehend how on? can he t/ires, or Ihrf one. I hold it my duly to 
believe, not whut I can comprehend or account for, but what my .Maker teaches 
me." 



118 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



by mankind to be contained in the scriptures — the words 
being supposed to have remained always the same — we 
should undoubtedly be surprised to find that those pas- 
sages which, in our view, clearly contain this doctrine, 
had never been understood by others in the same manner 
as by ourselves. But the ancient Jews always under- 
stood and taught this doctrine as it was understood and 
taught by the prophets. In the concise history of the 
creation, Moses says, more than thirty times, Aloim, — that 
is, gods, — created ; the noun being plural and the verb 
singular in every instance. These the Jewish Paraphrasts 
explained by Jehovah, — his Word, that is, his Son, — and 
his Wisdom, or Holy Spirit ; which they call ' three de- 
grees.' These three, they assert, are one, and declare 
them to be one inseparable Jehovah. This doctrine the 
Jews have exhibited in a variety of methods, clear, con- 
vincing, and impressive. These I shall briefly exhibit. 
The first remarkable sentence is from Rabbi Judah Hak- 
kadash, or Judah the Holy, — in which the doctrine of 
the Jewish church is declared, in the most explicit 
manner, to be ' God the Father, God the Son, God the 
Holy Ghost; three in Unity, one in Trinity.' This 
Rabbi flourished in the second century. The Jews an- 
ciently used a solemn symbol of the Deity, which they 
called called Sephiroth, a word signifying enumerations, 
but used by their learned men to denote splendor. These 
are sometimes exhibited in the form of a tree with its 
branches extended, and sometimes by ten concentric cir- 
cles — that figure being the symbol of perfection. All 
these splendors are represented as issuing from the su- 
preme and infinite source, as light from the sun. Of 
this tree, Rabbi Schabte says : ' There are three degrees 
— the root, the stem, and the branches, — and these three 
are one.' By this he intends, that the infinite source and 
the other two degrees are one and inseparable. 



INTIMATIONS OF THE TRINITY. 



119 



" Again : the ancient Jews wrote the name of God sym- 
bolically, by including three gods within a circle, and 
subscribing under the gods and within the circle the 
vowel kametz. The circle was the figure denoting per- 
fection. The three gods were the beginning letter of the 
word Jehovah, thrice repeated to denote the three persons 
in the Godhead. The kametz was the point of perfec- 
tion, and denoted the same thing with the circle, and the 
unity of the divine essence. The letter Schiu was 
another emblem of the Most High, in use among the 
Jews. This letter, which is the first in the word Shaddai, 
or the Almighty, one of the scripture names of God, is 
formed of three branches, alike in size and figure, espe- 
cially as written in the old Samaritan character, and 
united in one stem. This letter is distinctly written on 
the Phylacteries which are worn by Jews at the present 
day. 

"Such are some of the testimonies of the Jewish church 
Concerning this subject, — composed on the one hand of 
direct declarations, and on the other of symbols equally 
definite and certain, especially as explained by their own 
commentators. These prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, 
that the ancient Jewish church held uniformly the doc- 
trine of the Trinity. The latter have indeed denied it, 
but to this denial they have been led merely by their 
hatred to Christianity. 

[Signed,) "A Christian Israelite." 

additional statements as to the triads ok the oentii.es. 

Mr. Faber, in his great work on the Pagan Mythology, 
gives the following account in continuation of his views 
Of the triads of the Gentiles. His statement is condensed. 
As the earth after the deluge was divided between the 
three sons of Noah, who were worshipped in after times 



120 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



as the three great gods, Noah being the great Father 
who had thus triplicated himself, so we find this fact per- 
vading all nations and systems of religion growing out 
of it. 

Among the Hindoos there is the Monad, a first great 
father Brahm, and the Triad, Brahma, Yishnu and Siva. 
Among the Buddhists, whether in India, China, or else- 
where, there is the selfsame triplicating father, whether 
called Buddha, or Fohi, or by any other name. The Tar- 
tars worshipped a triplicated Deity, under three several 
names. The Peruvians, whose ancestors probably crossed 
over from Asia, had the same idea of a God who was 
three in one and oue in three, worshipping the sun and 
air under three different images and names. The Per- 
sians had their Ormazd, Mithras, and Ahriman. The 
Syrians had their Monimus, Aziz, and Ares. The Egyp- 
tians their Cneph, Eicton, Phtha. The Greeks and Eo- 
mans their Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, three in number, 
but one in essence, all springing from one Chronos, a 
fourth and older god. The Cannaanites had their self- 
triplicated Baal. The Goths their Odin, Vile, and Ve, 
who are described as the sons of Bura, the offspring of 
the mysterious Con, — that is, born of the Ark. The Celts 
had their triple Hu, or Menu. To the same class Mr. 
Faber and others ascribe the triads of the Orphic, Py- 
thagorean, and Platonic schools, and the imperial triad 
ot the old Chaldean and Babylonian philosophy. 

The poets and philosophers could easily lay hold of 
these traditions, and mingle them with their fables and 
systems so as to make them very different from the origi- 
nal facts from which they were drawn. 

To the above we add the opinion of Sir Matthew Hale, 
in his great work " On the Primitive Origination of Man- 
kind." 

In regard to the expression, "Let us make man in our 



INTIMATIONS OF THE TRINITY. 



121 



image, after our likeness," some of the ancients, he 
says, thought that this declared an actual conference with 
some angelic heings, and that Plato borrowed his notion 
on the suhject from the history of Moses, or some tradi- 
tion of it. Plato, he says, and some other philosophers 
and mythologists, held that God conferred with those 
whom they called Dii ex Diis — inferior gods — horn of the 
greater ones, or angelic intelligences ; that hy them he 
made the bodies of men, though he alone formed their 
souls. 

Others, Sir Matthew says, with far greater evidence, 
think it was the deliberation and conclusion of the three 
persons of the Holy Trinity. 

OPINION OF SIR WILLIAM JONES. 

Although he was always desirous of establishing any 
affinities between the Bible and the sacred books of India, 
yet he complained that 6ome of the missionaries were 
foolish enough to urge "that the Hindoos were even now 
almost Christians, because their Bramha, Vishnu, and Siva 
were no other than the Christian Trinity." A learned 
Joviall writer has pointed out that the Trinitarian God- 
head of Christianity differs from all other triads, in being 
exclusively and wholly good; whereas, in heathenism, one 
of the three divine powers was conceived to be opposed 
to the other two, — that is, the principle of evil. 

Mli. HAIiDWIc's OPINION. 

lie thinks that the Tramorti or Triad of India was the 
result of an endeavor to regain the idea of the unity of 
Cod. They thought that Brahma, or the Ineffable, had 
made a revelation of himself in nature, in the three char- 



122 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



acters of creator, preserver, and destroyer, and attempted 
thus to conceive of God. These three characters repre- 
sented everything that was divine. These three, said a 
learned Brahmin, have their places in the earth, the in- 
termediate region, and heaven, or fire, air, and sun. All 
other deities are portions of these. The lord of the crea- 
tures is the deity of all collectively. The three, Brahma, 
Vishnu, and Siva, are deemed worthy of highest honor, 
because they gather up and place before the worshipper 
everything that he can possibly know of God. 

Mr. ITardwic protests against the germ of the Chris- 
tian Trinity being found in any or all of the physical pro- 
cesses of nature. He shows how entirely different from 
the Trinity of the Bible are all the triads of the philo- 
sophic Gentiles. 



CHAPTER VII. 



ON THE TEMPTATION BY THE DEVIL, EN THE FORM OF A SERPENT. 

Wb proceed now to the more particular consideration 
of the instrument hy which man was tempted and se- 
duced. 

If, in the wisdom of God, as already stated, an order 
of beings, such as man, of whom obedience was required, 
but who was not to be irresistibly compelled to it; who 
must be put on trial, and of course exposed to some temp- 
tation, though not with the view of enticing him to sin, 
then it must be for God to decide what the trial or temp- 
tation should be. 

While God solemnly protests that he does not tempt 
man to sin, — that is, does not seek to allure him to sin, — yet 
he proves him by certain trials, which are in one sense 
temptations, but with the promise of assistance sufficient 
for his preservation from sin. Man is still on trial, 
though under different circumstances from those in which 
our parents are placed. Man, in his fallen state, has less 
strength and disposition to withstand temptation, but then 
lie has. peculiar and very great helps afforded him from 
above. Great things have been done for him, in order to 
his recovery, which were not done for our first parents. 
We have, however, many enemies which are tempters to 
us. 

The first great tempter still continues his malicious 
efforts to prevent our restoration. IJesidcs this, God per- 
mits us to be availed and tempted by evil men, in the 



124 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



midst of whom we live. He warns us against evil com- 
munications with the wicked, lest they corrupt. 

If any object to the doctrine of Satanic influence, as 
exerted against our first parents, and think hardly of God 
for permitting it, they must in like manner complain that 
God permits evil men to tempt, as they are continually 
doing. It is sad to think how many demons there are 
in human form, who are drawing away others, especially 
the young and inexperienced, from the paths of virtue and 
piety. Some there are who deserve to be ranked with 
Beelzebub himself. Sometimes they band themselves to- 
gether and become legion. But there is One mightier 
than all the wicked of earth and hell, who, as our repre- 
sentative — the second Adam — was tempted like as the first 
was, only without sin. Our Lord, as we said in a previous 
chapter, was tempted through the appetites of the body, 
as well as through the higher cravings of the soul, in 
the waste howling wilderness ; but for us he came off vic- 
torious, and Satan fell as lightning from heaven. In this 
view of man's nature and condition on earth, both before 
and since the fall, we must perceive the unsoundness of 
such objections as are sometimes made to the Mosaic ac- 
count of the temptation, before which our first parents 
fell. But it is sometimes complained that the narrative 
is obscure and defective ; nothing being said, until we 
come to other scriptures, of any being except the reptile 
serpent,— the great agent, the evil spirit not being alluded 
to. This may readily be accounted for in the same 
manner as many other omissions in the very brief, and, 
as it were, short-hand history of Moses, and may be ex- 
plained and fully justified. Moses was writing for a 
people who had received from their ancestors all that 
Moses told them, and in greater fulness; oftentimes, 
indeed, with accompanying errors, which in time had 
been added to original truth. 



THE TEMPTATION. 



125 



Moses was inspired to separate the truth from the false- 
hood, and record nothing hut what was necessary. The 
Israelites douhtless understood what he meant when saying 
that the serpent heguiled our first mother, just as well as 
we do who have all the other scriptures which testify to 
it. The world, in truth, was full of this tradition at that 
time, though often corrupted and turned into superstition. 
The devil had at this time more temples in the world 
than God himself, lie is called in scripture, "The god 
of this world." The whole world is represented as "lying 
in wickedness, — that is, in the wicked one." He is the 
"Prince of the powers of the air," having many evil 
spirits subject to him, and leagued with him. "We fight 
not, the apostle says, " against flesh and blood only ; but 
against principalities and powers, and spiritual wicked- 
nesses in high places."' The wicked and unbelieving of 
earth are declared to be "of their father, the devil." 
From the earliest period <>t' the Christian church this evil 
spirit has, at baptism, been solemnly renounced with all 
his works. Indeed, for a long time before Christ, when 
heathen converts were admitted into the Jewish church, 
by baptism and circumcision, this form of renunciation 
was used, for the Jews rightly considered all the idola- 
tries of the heathen world as the works of the devil. 

The thought bars doubtless entered into the mind when 
considering this painful subject, and the question been 
asked, What could have induced a being of another and 
perhaps distant world, to come into this and seek the ruin 
of our infant race? To this it might be answered, What 
can induce so many of our fallen world so wantonly to 
assail the peace and happiness of their fellow-beings? 
Sin is the moving cause — sin, which is glad at the calami- 
ties of others, and wishes to reduce all to its own level. 
The u i-e son of Sirach, a Hebrew, and author of one of 
those ancient books which are sometimes bound up with 



126 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



the inspired ones, and which, though not allowed to be 
used for the establishment of doctrine, are yet sometimes 
permitted to be used for instruction in manners, tells us 
that " The devil was moved of envy" to seduce man from 
his obedience and happiness ; and it is remarkable that 
such is the tradition (as will be seen) in many other na- 
tions besides that of Judea. 

Our great English poet has introduced this general 
persuasion, as a certain fact, into his poem, wherein he 
sings of Paradise Lost : 

" The infernal serpent, he it was whose guile, 
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived 
The mother of mankind." 

" For now the thought 
Of lost happiness, and lasting pain, 
Torments him." 

Speaking to his comrades in rebellion and suffering, he 
says, 

" To do aught good, never will be our task ; 
But ever to do ill, our sole delight." 

He, with his rebellious host, has been cast out of heaven 
for desiring higher station, as our first parents were cast 
out of Eden for a similar fault : 

" To reign is worth ambition, though in hell ; 
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven" 

was his motto. His proudest feeling was — ■ 

" All good to me is lost ; 
Evil, be thou my good." 

On reaching paradise, and seeing the happiness of Adam 
and Eve — 



THE TEMPTATION. 



127 



" Aside the devil turned 
For envy. Sight hateful, right tormenting ! " 

Another of our old English poets has adopted and 
forcibly set forth the same sentiment, viz., that envy was 
a moving principle in the bosom of the arch-fiend of 
hell, in seeking the destruction of the human race. Air. 
Cowley, in his poem entitled "Davideis," or the troubles 
of David during the persecution of Saul, makes envy 
the chief demon which infuriated the breast of Saul. He 
takes his readers down to the abode of the fallen angels: 

" Here Lucifer, the mighty captive, reigns, 
Proud midst his woes, and tyrant in his chains." 

Myriads of spirits fell wounded round him there, 

" Since when, the dismal solace of their woe 
lias been, weak mankind to undo." 

" Then sought the tyrant fiend young David's fall, 
And gainst him raised the powerful rage of Saul, 
lie saw the beauties of his sliapc and face ; 
His female sweetness, and his manly grace. 
He saw the nobler wonders of his mind ; 
Great gilt-, whii-h f>r great works he knew designed; 
And well lie knew what legacy did place 
The sacred sceptre in blest Judah's race, 
From which the eternal Shiloh was to spring, — 
A knowledge which new hells to hell did bring." 

Assembling his hosts, he exhorts them in terrific words 
t<» aid him t< i destroy the Lord's anointed ; but they feared 
to engage in it : 

" A dreadful silence filled the hollow place, 
Doubling the native terror of its face. 
Knvy, at lilt, crawls forth, — from that dire throng, 
Of all the din-fullest I 



128 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Envy, the worst of fiends, herself presents ; 
Envy, good only when she herself torments. 
She spoke ; all stared at first, and made a pause. 
Great Beelzebub starts from his burning throne 
To embrace the fiend. 

The snakes all hissed, the fiends all murmured." 

Dispatched to the court of Saul, she soon rouses him to 
fury : 

" Alas ! poor monarch ! you 
Slew thousands only, he ten thousand slew ; 
Him Israel loves, him neighboring nations fear ; 
You but the name and empty title bear." 

Thus did Satan, in the form of a serpent, seek to excite 
ambition in the breasts of our first parents ; promising 
them that they should be not only kings, but gods, if 
they ate of the forbidden tree ; intimating, perhaps, that 
God was jealous of the happiness and power they would 
gain thereby. 

And now, as to the form of that animal which was 
selected by the seducer for his wicked purpose, we re- 
mark, that the common impression, derived from the 
brief and simple narrative of Moses, is, that it was the same 
low, grovelling, and accursed thing, the object of the 
dislike and abhorrence of all, which now crawls along the 
earth, and licks the dust, and whose poison is the most 
deadly that can mingle with the blood that courses through 
the veins of man. 

But there is nothing in the scriptures which requires 
such a belief, and much in reason and in the general 
traditions and histories, as to the serpent, to induce a 
contrary opinion. If the earth was accursed on account 
of the sin of Adam ; if, when the fruit was plucked, 

" Earth felt the wound, 
And Nature, sighing through all her works, 
Gave signs of woe that all was lost ;" 



THE SERPEXT. 



129 



if thorns and thistles now grew up where once flowers 
and fruits and trees arose spontaneously, — why not the ser- 
pent be stigmatized, and made to crawl upon the earth, 
and glide away from view ? Once it was not only more 
subtle than any beast of the field, but our Lord himself 
speaks of its wisdom in the same sentence with the inno- 
cence of the dove. Is it likely that the tempter would 
choose the most inferior and loathsome of the animals 
in paradise, with which to approach our first mother ? 
Would he not rather choose one with which she was 
familiar — a favorite, perhaps, in the garden — and who 
would be heard most readily ? Such has ever been the 
impression amongst men, as will be shown by references 
to ancient authors. 

Our English bard, who, in order to the composition of 
his great poem, studied all history, sacred and profane, 
and was a deep philosopher as well as divine, describes 
the serpent as moving, not 

" Prone on the (ground, as since, but on his rear 
Circular ha.se of rising folds, that towered, 
Fold above fold, a surging maze. His head 
Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eye, 
"With burnished neck, of verdant gold, erect 
Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass 
F'loated redundant. Pleasing was his shape, 
And lovely." 

A passage from Virgil's /Enead, as translated by Dry- 
den, shows that very similar was the ancient notion of the 
serpent. Milton, perhaps, took his picture from Virgil 
and other pagan writers. When celebrating the funeral 
rites of hi-, father Anchises, ./Eneas places certain offer- 
ings on his tomb : 

"Scarce had he finished, when, with speckled pride, 
A serpent from the t'>mb began to glide; 



130 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



His hugy bulk on seven high volumes rolled ; 
Blue was his back, but streaked with scaly gold. ' 
Thus, riding on his curls, he seemed to pass 
A rolling fire along, and singed the grass. 
More various colors through his body run 
Than Iris, when her bow imbibes the sun. 
Betwixt the rising altars, and around, 
The sacred monster shot along the ground ; 
"With harmless play amidst the bowls he passed, 
And with the lolling tongue assayed the taste. 
Thus fed with holy food, the wondrous guest 
Within the hollowed tomb retired to rest." 

If the serpent of paradise was of an agreeable form, 
was it not wise and good in God to inflict a curse upon 
its body and make it odious in the eyes of men, that the 
very sight of it might impressively remind man of the 
sin and folly of our first parents in barkening to its de- 
ceptive voice ? Its degraded state should elevate our 
hopes. "We should see the destruction of Satan in its 
curse. Even as it now is, some nations are prone to wor- 
ship the serpent ; to this all history testifies. Satan, the 
real deceiver, has ever used it for the purpose of leading 
men into idolatry. How much more evil might it have 
done with a more pleasing shape ! 

None can deny that the evil principle has been wor- 
shipped all over the world, in some form or other, with 
a view to avert judgments and calamities. Many of the 
philosophers, until the light of Christianity began to dawn 
upon the world, believed that the evil principle was co- 
eval with the good, and not equal to it, yet very power- 
ful for ill. Satan was the nearest approach to the philos- 
ophers' idea of the evil spirit, and was permitted by God 
to exert a certain power on earth. 

But this evil one was seldom found alone among the 
ancients, but rather with kindred spirits. Bishop Stilling- 
fleet, in his learned work " Origines Sacree," doubts not that 



THE SERPENT. 



131 



the origin of that very ancient opinion among the heathen, 
" De iuvidia deinonis," concerning the envy of the devil, 
is to be found in the fall of man to which Moses refers. 
Such, indeed, is the resemblance between the account in 
Genesis and that in some other ancient books, he says, 
that it was attempted to charge Moses with horrowing 
from them ; but the superior antiquity of the books of 
Moses is too well established to admit of this. Traditions 
among the ancient Israelites, and in other nations, to the 
same effect, are doubtless true, and make in favor of his 
narrative. 

Plutarch speaks of ancient tradition, that " there are 
certain wicked and malignant demons which envy good 
men, and hinder their pursuit of virtue lest they should 
become partakers of greater felicity than they themselves 
enjoy. Zenocrates, also, commenting on Plutarch, speaks 
of the tradition of " some great and potent beings in the 
air, which are of a surly and malignant nature, and re- 
joice to do men all the mischief they can." Even Por- 
phyry, the great enemy of Christianity, affirms that ac- 
cording to his pagan system 11 There are some wicked spir- 
its who help men to evil ; but these very spirits may 
sometimes commend what is good, lest they should be sus- 
pected of being what they really are." By which, says 
Bishop Stillingtleet, \vc: have a good account of whatever 
was commendable in the heathen oracles, as, he says, 
Jamblicus himself confesses. 

The IJislmp dwells emphatically on the fact that wher- 
ever the devil had most power, and idolatry and wicked- 
ness most prevailed, there the symbol or sign of the ser- 
pent was most used. Thus, also, the satirist Perseus says, 
" Pinge duos angues, pueri, sacer est locus." " In a short 
time," says an able writer, " the power of the devil was 
such that he outstripped God himself in the number and 
splendor of his temples, the number of his votaries, and 



132 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



the pomp of his worship." And this was almost always 
accompanied with more or less of the symbol of the ser- 
pent. 

That the ancient Jews thus understood the part that 
the devil had in the fall of man, is evident from what we 
read in the Book of "Wisdom, where it is written that 
"Through the envy of the devil, death came into the 
world ;" that " Error and darkness had their beginning 
with sinners ;" that " By the woman came the beginning 
of sin." 

In the ancient mysteries of Greece it is well known 
that the people used to carry about a serpent, and were 
instructed to cry out Eva, whereby the devil seemed to 
exult over the fall of our first mother. Even now, says 
Stackhouse, in idolatrous nations, there are evidences of 
this triumph of the devil under the form of a serpent. 

Melanchthon, the reformer, tells of some priests in Asia 
who " carry about a serpent in a brazen vessel ; and as they 
attend it with a great deal of music, and the charms of 
verse, the serpent lifts up its head, opens its mouth, and 
thrusts out the head of a beautiful virgin ; the devil, in 
this manner, glorying over the miscarriage of our first 
mother." Similar accounts are given by travellers in the 
West Indies. 

Mr. Faber's account of the origin and import of the 
worship of the serpent is confirmed by many other mytho- 
logical writers, both ancient and modern. Its history, he 
says, is curious and perplexing. It is a symbol of evil, 
and of good also. 

The words cherubim and seraphim are of similar mean- 
ing, but seraphim is the name of the fiery flying serpent of 
the wilderness. 

Various legends show that the worship of the serpent 
was in part derived from the form in which Satan de- 
ceived our first parents. 



THE SERPENT. 



133 



Plutarch says the great serpent Python signifies destruc- 
tion. Porphyry, and others among the Greeks, speak of 
u evil demons " whose wish is to be gods, and the power 
which presides over them aspires to be the greatest of 
gods ; but the Most High, with a mighty arm, restrains 
their machinations. 

Iu the Gothic theology, the god Thor, whom they es- 
teem as their middle divinity, or mediator between God 
and man, is said to have " bruised the head of the great ser- 
pent with his mace, but so severe was to be the contest, 
that he himself would be suffocated with the flood of 
venom from the mouth of the serpent." "What can this 
mean but the seed of the woman bruising the serpent's 
head, and the serpent biting his heel? 

In India, also, two sculptured figures are yet extant, 
in one of their oldest pagodas, one of which represents 
Christina, an incarnation of Vishnu, trampling on the 
crushed head of the serpent, while the other exhibits the 
poi.-on. .us reptile- encircling the deity in its folds, and 
biting his heel. 

But the serpen t was also used as a symbol of good. 
" The word seraph, in Hebrew," says Mr. Faber, " signi- 
fies a flying serpent, — an animal of great beauty, and 
shining like burnished gold, and exhibiting the semblance 
of a face, as the rays of the sun strike upon it, when it 
wings its way through the liquid air." He thinks that 
this and the cherubim may have been confounded, and 
thus it may have become the symbol of good also. 

One of the Jewish rabbis observes that this is the 
mistake of our holy language, that a serpent is called 
x,r<ij>l) as an angel is called Hnnph; and it has been 
imagined by some that Satan tempted Evo under the 
form of one of those splendid winged serpents which are 
denominated seraphim. Hence it is that the serpent, or 
the image of it, is used in the pagan worship, sometimes 



134 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



representing the evil principle, sometimes the principle 
of good. 

Perhaps the sacred writer may have alluded to this 
when speaking of him as " appearing in the garb of an 
angel of light." 



It has been asserted by some of the enemies of Chris- 
tianity, that the doctrine of angelic beings, both good and 
evil, was borrowed from the Medo-Persians, who were in 
possession of Babylon during the seventy years of the 
Jewish captivity, and that it is a part of the Medo-Persian 
system of Zoroaster. This system supposed the existence 
of an evil principle from all eternity, coexisting with a 
good one. Man, as originally formed by Ormazd the 
good one, was endowed with noble qualities, and bidden 
to approve himself the lord of this lower world by culti- 
vating purity in thought, in word, and in action, and by 
making a constant warfare with his enemies, the Devas. 
At first, the parents of mankind were humble, and de- 
voted to the service of Ormazd — were innocent and happy. 
They were destined, also, to more perfect happiness ; but 
Ahriman, the sleepless enemy of man and purity, de- 
scending earthwards in the form of a serpent, plotted 
their corruption, and ere long, by means of fruit derived 
from his own province of creation, he seduced them from 
their true allegiance. The obvious resemblance between 
this and the Mosaic account would incline us to believe 
that the Persians borrowed from the Jews, and not the 
Jews from the Persians, if one did borrow from the other. 
But there is good reason to believe that both received it, 
by tradition, from an early common source ; in the one 
the tradition being preserved in its purity by the special 
providence of God, through Moses and the chosen people, 
in the other being intermingled with fable. Babylon was 
to the Jews a furnace, in which they were purified ; and, 



THE SERPENT. 



135 



they came out of it, not corrupted, but purified, aud never 
again returned to idolatry. There is an essential differ- 
ence between the two systems, — that of the Bible and 
the Medo-Persian. In the one there is a necessary eter- 
nally-existing principle of evil, coeval with the good one, 
and marring the happiness of God's creatures ; in the 
other — the Jewish system — the devil, the tempter, is a 
creature, a fallen being like man, whose fall — the origin 
of whose sin — is involved in the same mystery with that 
of man. lie becomes fiendlike, after the same manner 
with some men, and seeks to communicate of his sin and 
misery to others. Satan is, indeed, a liar and a murderer 
from the beginning, but not from eternity, from unavoid- 
able necessity. Our Lord says, " lie abode not in the 
truth," which shows that he was once in the truth, and 
neither a liar nor murderer at that time. — John viii. 
44. The existence and power of the evil one are made 
more and more apparent as the human race advances, 
and the BCriptares reveal spiritual and invisible things to 
ub. "The Son of God was manifested that he might de- 
stroy the works of the devil." — 1 John iii. 8. They were 
the works of that "old serpent, which is the devil and 
Satan." — flu v. xx. 2. It has been well said, that " till the 
mightier power of good was revealed, we were, in mercy, 
not suffered to know how mighty was the power of evil." 
Wherefore, at the time of our Lord's appearance on earth, 
the works of the devil were more open and daring than 
ever before. 

In relation to the form of his first appearance, Mr. 
Ilardwic, after a most elaborate search into all ancient 
history and tradition, says, "There is found to be a most 
singular concert in east and west, north and south, in civ- 
ilized and semi-barbarous countries, in the old world and 
the new, not only to the fact that serpents were somehow 
associated with the ruin of the human family, but that 



136 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



serpents so employed were vehicles of a malignant per- 
sonal spirit, by whatever name he was described." 

While on this subject, it may be well to consider the 
use of the words devil and devils in the New Testament. 
Mr. Faber, agreeing with many other learned men, says, 
" It is a remarkable thing, though not perhaps very gen- 
erally observed, that throughout the whole New Testa- 
ment the word devil, as applied to a fallen spirit, never 
occurs in the plural number. Our English translation, 
indeed, repeatedly speaks plurally of devils, but such is 
not the case in the Greek original." The word diabolos, 
he says, as applied to a fallen spirit, is never used plurally 
in the New Testament. The word rendered devils in 
the original is not diaboli, but demon ia, or demones ; so 
that, as the singular, diabolos, is rendered devil, so demon 
and demonia ought to have been rendered demon, or 
demons. A distinction is made between a demon and a 
devil. A demon is the disembodied spirit of a human 
being, whether it be good or bad, gracious or malignant. 
The heathen worshipped the souls of deceased heroes. 
These were their gods — no gods, scripture called them ; 
these inspired their oracles ; these were the good or evil 
geniuses which were supposed to attend upon some men 
upon earth ; these were the devils against sacrificing to 
which we are warned in the New Testament. 

But because the devil is never spoken of but in the 
singular number, are we to infer from it that there is but 
one devil ? Far from it. We read of the devil and his 
angels, for whom hell was prepared, and unto whom the 
wicked of earth shall be joined in the last day. We read 
of the devil as prince of the power of the air ; prince of 
this world ; god of this world. St. Paul, in his epistle to 
the Ephesians, exhorts us to "put on the whole armor of 
God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of 
the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, 



THE SERPENT. 



137 



but against principalities, against powers, against the 
rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wick- 
ednesses in high places" — or, as some render it, " in the 
higher region of the heavens." The devil, therefore, is to 
be regarded as the master-spirit, who leads his evil angels 
in all wickedness and rebellion. Of course it will be 
6een, from the foregoinor, that there are those who asrree 
with some of the fathers — among them Justin and Ath- 
enagoras — that some of the demoniacal possessions of 
scripture are to be ascribed to the unclean and wicked 
spirits who were once in human bodies, and were per- 
mitted to torment those who were yet in the flesh. We 
do not enter into the discussion, but merely state the fact 
that such an opinion has existed, and still exists. 

We conclude our remarks with some passages from the 
DOfit complete and useful sketch of Satan and his works 
that we have met with. The present bishop of Maine, in 
a late charge to the clergy of Maine on the personality, 
kingdom, and power of Satan, thus speaks : "Scriptural 
as is the belief (in Satan), it did not originate with even 
the earliest of the sacred writings ; it was in the world, 
like the belief in God and the existence of good angels, 
before M«»-es in- Abraham — before paradise was lost. It 
is presupposed in the Bible, which does not describe the 
author of human sin, nor formally assert his origin or his 
being, but tells his deeds and warns against his devices." 
On t he subject of the supremacy of Satan, he 6ays: "To 
believe the guilt of evil men and evil demons, and yet 
hold the primacy of Satan incredible merely for the in- 
tensity of his wickedness, would be as though we should 
ace armies ravaging, plundering, slaying — feel all the hor- 
rors of their atrocious warfare — and yet be astonished 
when, at their head, the invading despot or iron com- 
mander should appear." "The universal tendency of 
Weaker natures is to rally round the stronger." "If a 



138 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



leader, in after times, possessing the practical intellect of 
Napoleon, should raise his standard, though his guilt were 
tenfold be} r ond the guilt of that great slayer of mankind, 
who can doubt that he would be surrounded by myriads 
of men, ready to pour out their lives on the battle-field at 
his feet?" After repeating the exhortation of the apos- 
tle to gird ourselves to battle against spiritualities and 
powers, etc., he adds : " The nature or degree of the 
exaltation of him whom the scriptures not dimly delineate 
as 

' O'er the rest 
In shape and gesture proudly eminent,' 

they have not defined ; but whether it be more or less, 
what motive can remain, what degree of probability can 
be asserted, after such a display of many adversaries, for 
rejecting the far more frequent and more distinct allu- 
sions to that one ? " 

To the whole charge I refer my readers, and especially my 
brethren of the clergy, as one of the most profitable treatises 
on a subject not now so frequently and emphatically dwelt 
upon as by the sacred writers, the early fathers, and the faith- 
ful reformers. At an early period of my life, after heart- 
ily embracing the Christian faith, I met with an ingenious 
argument intended to show that all the demoniacal pos- 
sessions mentioned in the Bible were only bodily infirmi- 
ties, or mere impositions. For a time I was led astray by 
the argument; but as often as I took up my Bible — 
especially the New Testament — and read the plain narra- 
tive therein concerning these unhappy possessions, and 
the miracles by which they were cast out, I found the 
theory untenable. I have been only strengthened in my 
conviction of the realities of those scriptural cases by 
finding how universal is the consent of mankind to the 
evil influence of wicked beings of another order, although 
so small a part ascribed to them be true. 



CIIAPTEE VIII. 



ON THE GARDEN* OF EDEN". 

The place selected by the Creator himself, and adorned 
and enriched by his own hand, for the residence of our 
first parents, must have been a remarkable and deeply 
interesting spot. Beautiful and delightful as many others 
were, and still are, as to soil, productions, and scenery, 
this must have been surpassingly so. It was doubtless 
filled with all the means of present happiness to innocent 
and holy beings, and well calculated to satisfy them, 
especially when the presence and society of God himself 
were superadded. 

It is not surprising that the curiosity of men in after 
ages, even to the present time, should be exercised in 
ascertaining its exact location, even though its character 
and appearance may have been somewhat affected by the 
deluge, and yet more by the lapse of succeeding ages 
and the agricultural operations of man. God has, per- 
haps wi.-ely, concealed the exact portion from us, even as 
lie hid the body of Moses lest it should be worshipped by 
men, so prone as they are to idolatry. 

There are many circumstances, however, which enable 
us to form a sufficiently accurate idea of the location for all 
purposes of gratifying an allowable curiosity; thus fur- 
nishing, also, 6ome proofs of the scripture history addi- 
tional to those previously po~,e.—cd. That our first parents, 
after being driven from paradise and ever after excluded 
from it, continued to hover around the sacred 6pot, and 



140 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



that many of their descendants occupied that region, is 
so probable a circumstance that few would be found to 
dispute it.* 

That it was near this place that righteous Noah dwelt, 
and built the sacred ark ; that mount Ararat, on which 
the vessel rested, was near to it ; that Noah and his sons, 
descending from the ark, here offered sacrifices, and here 
pitched their tents or reared their first dwellings, is ren- 
dered most probable by many facts and traditions, some 
of which will be mentioned. 

Considering the long lives of our forefathers, before 
and after the flood, it is most worthy of our belief that 
the localities of the garden of Eden and of Mount Ararat 
should have been well known to Noah, unto whom one 
of the grandsons of Adam might have shown them ; and 
to Abraham, to whom one of the sons of Noah may have 
pointed them out. 

There can not be any mistake as to the part of the 
world where the first of the antediluvian and postdiluvian 
nations dwelt. No one thinks of placing them in Europe, 
or Africa, or the more eastern parts of Asia, where the 
millions of Hindoos and Chinese have long swarmed. 

From that disposition of cities and nations which leads 
them to put in a claim for the birthplace and residence of 
great men, and the occui-rence of remarkable events, some 
may be found who claim the garden of Eden and Mount 
Ararat as belonging to their ancestors, whose pretensions, 
however, are entirely disregarded, as unworthy of con- 
sideration. By general consent, not merely of those who 
admit the Mosaic account, buf; of many other most relia- 

* Mr. Shuckford, in his " Connection between Sacred and Profane History," 
says, in vol. ii., p. 135, note : " It may seem to us a great retrospect to look 
back from Abraham to Adam's habitation ;" but adds, " Abraham might con- 
verse for many years with Shem, Shem with Lamech, and Lamech with Adam ;" 
and he therefore says, " It would not be more wonderful than for one of us to 
know the habitation of his father's grandfather." 



OX THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 



HI 



Lie authorities, the garden of Eden must have been near 
the sources of the two great rivers, the Euphrates and the «■ 
Tigris or Hiddekel mentioned by Moses, and which are 
still well known as taking their rise in the mountains ot 
Armenia. 

Moses does indeed mention two other rivers in connec- 
tion with the garden of Eden — Pison and Gihon — of which 
nothing is now known, there being no signs of them. 
They must have dried up, or sunk in the sand or morasses 
of the East, as other rivers have been ; or they must have 
been swallowed up by the remaining two, at the place 
whence Moses says they became parted into four streams, 
after passing through the garden of Eden. 

Moses would never have asserted their existence, and 
jeopardized his reputation as an historian, if there were 
none such in the land. Some persons are at a loss to 
understand what he means by saying of one of them, 
viz., Gihon, that " it compasseth the whole land of Ethi- 
opia." Their surprise will be removed by the state- 
ment that there were two Ethiopias mentioned in scrip- 
ture and other histories — one in Africa, and one in 
Asia. That in Asia was comparatively a small tract, 
and was doubtless bounded by the river Gihon while 
it continued to flow. As almost all the rivers in the 
world take their rise in some elevated, mountainous re- 
gion, and thence descend into the more level country 
to pass into the seas, so it has ever been believed that 
the garden of Eden was in 6ome such high region, 
on some rich and commanding slope or flat, with 
mountains near, and the river flowing through it. 
Moses records, that a river went out of Eden, to 
water the garden ; that is, a river went out from the 
country of Eden, which was above and around the gar- 
don, and passed through it, watering it. It is proba- 
ble that it was small in its rise and early progress, hut, 



142 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



after passing through the ' garden, it parted into four 
heads, or streams, and became the four streams men- 
tioned in Genesis. 

Mr. Faber and some others think that it became a 
lake at the foot of a high region, from which it descended, 
and from this lake, or reservoir, issued into four separate 
rivers, which, in their passage to the gulf, became the 
great rivers Euphrates and Hiddekel, as well as those lesser 
ones which have disappeared. Mi*. Faber, speaking of 
the opinion of some commentators who would locate 
paradise in the dead fiat country below Babylon, says, 
that " Such a position might indeed rival the beauties of 
Holland and Batavia, but they would be physically in- 
capable of ravishing any eyes but those of a Dutch bur- 
gomaster." On the other hand, he says, " ~No tract of 
country could possibly produce more exquisitely beautiful 
and romantic scenery than one (like that he advocates) 
which contained a stream running through a finely- 
wooded vale into a glassy lake, and afterwards discharg- 
ing itself by four rivulets, murmuring through the same 
number of rocky glens." Who would not choose for his 
residence 

" Some fair eminence, where ether pure 
Surrounds him, and elysian prospects rise " ? 

More modern travellers represent this region still as being 
eminently the most interesting and fertile in the East. 
Milton calls paradise " The champaign head of a steep 
wilderness," — speaks of it as 

" A happy rural seat of various view." 

" While murmuring waters fall 
Down the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake." 

The only formidable competitor with Armenia for the 



OX THE GARDEN OF EDEX. 



143 



location of paradise and Ararat, is Mount Mem, in the 
north of India, one of the highest hills of the Indian Cau- 
casus, where the celebrated Ganges takes its rise. There 
are some remarkable traditions in connexion with this 
place, touching the residence of the human race and the 
resting of the ark, which serve to confirm the Mosaic 
account of the garden of Eden, and of certain rivers 
flowing from it ; and also the appulse of the ark, although 
they will not change the general opinion as to the loca- 
tion of paradise and Ararat. Moses does not tell us 
where Ararat was, but writes as to those who were already 
well acquainted with its geography. Some Hindoo legends 
favor the idea that it was one of the Caucasian mountains, 
and all the descriptions of it agree with the Mosaic account 
of Eden. 

The summit of this mountain is a circular plain of large 
extent, surrounded by hills. They call it a celestial earth 
— the former residence of the gods. They say some 
strange things about tour river.- issuing from it, and about 
a true which produced wonderful effects upon knowledge 
and happiness. The Ganges is one of these rivers. Their 
ki<-!V'1 books ili'chire tliat the first Menu, whom they 
called Adima, as they did his wife lea, lived in that 
region. The Hist Menu, or Adima, was the son of the 
Self-exi-tent, and lived before the second Menu, in whose 
time the flood oeeurred. The Mu.-sulnians of that red on 
have the same legends about the first parents. They say, 
with the Buddhi-ts, that our first parents continued to 
dwell long around and upon the holy mountain, but that 
the wicked de-cendants of a fratricidal brother were only 
allowed to dwell at the foot of it, while those of the other 
brother occupied a higher po.-itioii. All, however, agree 
in this, — the ark rested near where the lir.->t parents lived. 

The Buddhists of Thibet have a tradition of a tree 
of knowledge in their terrestrial paradi.-e, bearing the fruit 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



of immortality, which they call amrita, and the Greeks 
ambrosia. It is said to adjoin four vast rocks, from which 
flow four rivers. 

One thing is certain, that throughout the whole world 
the most sacred places for worship have been high hills, 
mountains, and groves ; and that the heathen always rep- 
resented their gods as dwelling on some lofty summit, — 
which favors the opinion that the garden of Eden, as well 
as Mount Ararat, was in an elevated country ; that they 
were either the same or very near each other- — the moun- 
tain perhaps overlooking the chosen spot where our first 
parents resided, and near which Adam and Noah after- 
wards lived. 

In the Gothic theology which was brought from the 
East, we have also an account of a celebrated tree which 
was the fountain of wisdom and knowledge, with an in- 
fernal serpent ever gnawing at its root. The celebrated 
garden of the Hesperides (of which the poets sing) with 
its golden apples, guarded by a serpent, is not without 
reason thought to have had its origin from the garden of 
Eden, however much diversified. 

The tradition concerning Mount Parnassus has doubt- 
less the same source. It was once tenanted by a mighty 
serpent which had the power of speech, and used to de- 
liver oracular responses, before the establishment of the 
Delphic Oracle. 

The chief deity who resided there was the god of 
knowledge, who slew the serpent. As to the worship of 
gods on mountains, Bishop Potter, in his 'Antiquities of 
Greece," says that the Greeks and most other nations wor- 
shipped their gods on the tops of high mountains. Strabo 
says the same of the Persians. Zenophon records that 
Cyrus sacrificed to Jupiter and the Sun, and the rest of 
the gods, upon the summits of mountains. Balak car- 



OX THE GARDEN" OF EDEN. 



145 



ries Baalam to the top of first one mountain, and then 
another, in order to get him to curse Israel. 

Abraham, at the command of God, carries his son to 
Mount Moriah, one of the moimtains about Jerusalem, 
perhaps Mount Zion itself. Horner speaks of the worship 
of Jupiter and other gods, on high places. As to Apollo 
he says, 

"Thine all the caverns and the topmost cliffs 
Of lofty mountains." 

Tacitus speaks of mountains so high that there are 
no places where the gods could so easily hear prayer, 
and that the priests chose such places for that reason. 
Although these high places were at first selected out of 
honor to the elevated ground on which the garden of 
Eden stood and on which Noah's ark rested, yet we 
know what a snare it became to the people of God ; 
what abominations the high places of Israel became, 
being perverted to the worship of all the gods of the 
heathen — the principal of these being, as many think, 
none other than Adam, Noah, and their sons. And when 
no such high places were to be found, still there was in 
the structure of their temples and pyramids an imitation 
of the same; and in Bandy deserts groves would be estab- 
lished seeming to vie with paraili.-e it. -elf. 

Prom the above and much more that might be said, it 
is evident that the fact of an earthly paradise, the habita- 
tion of our first parents, is one to which traditions and 
the religions observances of all ancient and many modern 
nations point with unerring hand. 

As to the lueality of Mount Ararat, which is so gene- 
rally identified with the garden of Eden, I will only add 
that Bcrosns, Polyhifltor, and other old pagan writers 
say that the second lather of mankind (Xoah) was saved 
in an ark or ship, which rested on one of the mountains 

10 



146 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



of Armenia. Josephus, the celebrated Jewish historian, 
says the same. Snch also was the opinion of Jerome, 
Epiphanins, and other early fathers of the Christian 
church. 

That the place where onr first parents were made by 
the hands of God, where they lived for some time the 
period not known, and where they worshipped God, 
should be copied in after ages ; that the temples of religion 
should be surrounded by groves like those which we 
may well suppose environed and shaded the garden of 
Eden, is so probable a circumstance, that none will hesi- 
tate to accept as a fact what is said of the sacred groves 
of the heathen upon their high places, and wherever 
their temples or oracles were found. The Elysian fields 
of the ancients were copies of the sacred groves, and both 
were drawn no doubt from the garden or paradise of our 
first parents. 

And even when these temples were in flat countries, 
barren and sultry, they would, either by the hand of art 
cover them with verdure and trees, or else select some 
oasis or green spot in the desert. Thus Quintus Curtius 
gives us the following account of a grove of Amon or 
Osiris in Africa : " The consecrated habitation of the deity 
was, incredible as it may seem, situated in the midst 
of a vast desert, and it was shaded from the sun by so 
luxuriant a vegetation that the solar beams could scarce- 
ly penetrate, through the thickness of the foliage. The 
groves were watered by meandering streams which 
flowed from numerous fountains, and a wonderful temper- 
ature of climate, resembling most of all the delightful 
season of spring, prevailed through the whole year, with 
an equal degree of salubrity." To some it may seem 
strange that any should seek to identify the garden of 
Eden, or paradise, with Mount Ararat, since all our ideas 
of the latter are associated with high and rocky peaks 



OX TIIE GARDEN OF EDE> T . 



147 



and uninhabited places. But even allowing that they 
were only very neighboring places, the one overlooking 
the other, the garden of Eden may have been in a most 
elevated position, and yet a most fertile and beautiful one. 
It is probable that some of the most interesting and fertile 
spots on earth may be found in the midst of high moun- 
tains, and on their veiy summits. 

On the summit of the great Alleghany mountains, in 
the south-western part of Virginia, there is a large plateau, 
consisting of eight or ten thousand acres, of the richest 
land in the state, scarcely undulating. From it several 
rivers rise, taking various directions towards the Atlantic 
or Mississippi. Doubtless such may be found in the midst 
of various other mountains of the earth. Such may 
paradise have been, near the source of that river which, 
after passing through it, was divided into four other 
rivers. Near this delightful spot may the penitent and 
believing first parents of our race, with the pious descend- 
ants of Beth, have lived, though not permitted to enter it; 
while Cain and his ungodly posterity went far away to 
the East, only to return with their fair but ungodly 
daughters to corrupt the sons of God, and by their inter- 
marriage to give birth to a race of giants in size, and till 
the earth with violence. It is not wonderful that Adam, 
and the pious among his descendants, should linger to the 
last near the sacred spot. The pious Montgomery, in his 
interesting poem a The "World before tin; Flood," makes 
him here to live, and here to die. The righteous Enoch 
is made to say — 

"One mom I tracked him on his lonely way, 
Pale as the gleam of slow awakening day ; 
With fee hie *tep he i limhM yon erag.'V height. 
Then fixed on distant Paradise his sight. 
He awhile, jn -ilent thought profound; 

Then, falling prostrate on the dewy ground, 



148 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



He poured his spirit in a flood of prayer, — 
Bewailed his ancient crime in self-despair, 
And claimed the pledge of reconciling grace, 
The promised Seed, the Saviour of his race." 

Enoch, is made to say — 

" I stood to greet him : when he raised his head 
Divine expression o'er his visage spread. 
' Once more I climh'd these rocks with weary pace, 
And hut once more to view my native place, 
To bid yon garden of delight farewell, 
The earthly Paradise from which I fell.' " 

In the sight of paradise he is made to expire. His 
funeral sermon was only one line — 

" His youth was penitence, his age was peace." 

But the most important consideration in connection 
with the locality supposed to be the abode of our first 
parents before the flood, and of the second parents of the 
human race after it, is yet to be mentioned. 

If we may reasonably believe that God, having pro- 
nounced man " very good," and having appointed him to 
have dominion over all other things here below, would 
select for him a delightful abode, and fill the garden of 
Eden with delights, — much more may we expect that, 
with a view not only to his own future happiness during 
the many hundred years of his earthly existence, but to 
the welfare of his posterity, he would have chosen that 
region of the earth most favorable to the continuance 
of the most perfect type of humanity as to bodily and 
mental beauty and vigor. That all parts of the earth are 
equally favorable to corporeal beauty and health, or to the 
more important qualities of the mind and character, none 
will pretend. All history would oppose the thought or 
assertion. And if it be asked in what latitude, in what 



ON" THE GARDEN OF EDEX. 



119 



zone of the earth, in what hemisphere has man been 
ever found in the highest perfection as to body and mind, 
making allowances for some few exceptions easily to be 
accounted for, — who would hesitate to say, in that very 
hemisphere, in that very zone, in that very latitude where 
man was made, and where paradise was placed ? 

"We might have supposed that the opposite temperate 
zone in the Southern hemisphere would be equally favor- 
able to the development and exercise and perfection of the 
powers and faculties of man ; but all history shows that 
it is not so. In the temperate zone of the Northern hem- 
isphere, and along the line of mountains reaching from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, — the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Tau- 
rian, the Circassian, and the Himalayan, — you must look 
for man and woman in their highest perfection. All the 
great kingdoms of the world, — the Assyrian, Babylonian, 
Medo-Persian, Grecian, and Poman, — have been in that 
range, and within the bound.- of that zone of the Xorth- 
ern hemisphere. There have all the arts and sciences 
most flourished, and there, especially, has religion exer- 
cised mibt power. 

Whoever would see ;i livelv exhibition of this fact need 
only furnish himself with a plate containing the pictures 
of fifteen or twenty type- of the human race in different 
parts of the world. He will shrink back in disgust from 
all but those which belong to the region which has been 
mentioned. Only let us niippose that the tropical region, 
or the Arctic circle had been the birthplace of man ; that 
lie had been made according to the type.- there prevailing, 
or had been subject to the various influences which have 
made those degenerate from the fair Circassian, or Arme- 
nian, or Persian, or the noble Grecian or Roman charac- 
ters, both as to body and mind. As we either ascend to 
the north or descend to the south of thi.- broad belt, man 
gradually becomes more ferocious, barbarous, and ignorant, 



150 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



or more feeble and indifferent in mind and body. Let all 
history, past and present, be examined, in order to test the 
truth of this statement, making due allowance for certain 
exceptions, the result of peculiar causes, which, however, 
do not affect the main position. "Whoever desires to see 
this subject ably discussed, will do well to examine the 
interesting work of Professor Guiot, entitled " Earth and 
Man," in which he establishes this position by a reference 
to universal history. "What has been said of Europe and 
Asia, is true also of America. The inhabitants of the tem- 
perate zone are, for the most part, not only derived from 
those nations of Europe which came from the finest types 
of humanity, but they still continue those types under the 
influence of the same causes which operated in their 
ancestors of the old world. 

And now, should any ask, Are the ways of God equal 
towards his rational creatures, in placing some of them in 
such favorable, and others in comparatively unfavorable 
circumstances, for continuing the perfection of the type 
first given to man? we should reply, that though God 
must not be questioned by man as to his gifts and favors, 
yet we should remember that in one respect, and that the 
greatest of all, we are on an equality. God made of one 
blood all the nations of the earth. His blessed Son tasted 
death for all. All are capable of everlasting glory in 
heaven. The religion of Christ is the great instrument of 
elevation to the whole human family. Let Christians do 
the noble work God has assigned them, and send the gos- 
pel to all the nations of the earth, and then shall the king- 
doms of this world become the kingdoms of Christ ; and 
if this earth is to be renewed., as some think, to be the 
future habitation of the saints, we may expect that it will 
be made a meet habitation for them throughout its whole 
extent ; and if not this, another and more perfect one will 
be made ready for their use. 



CLIAPTEE IX. 

ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL AND RESUEEECTION OF 
TIIE BODY. 

Man, by transgression, forfeited the favor of God, and 
incurred the sentence of death, though it was not imme- 
diately executed. Our first parents were put on a new 
probation, with the promise of a divine Eestorer who 
should bruise the head of the great enemy. It becomes 
us now to inquire as to the extent and duration of his be- 
ing under this Deliverer. That he was not to regain the 
BBlihly paradise which he had lost; that his life was not 
to he perpetuated, even on the outside of the garden of 
Eden, are clear from the whole history of man. None of 
the human race has ever escaped the penalty, so far as 
we know, except Enoch and Elijah, whom God received 
into heaven without requiring them to taste of death 
and go througli the painful struggles of dissolution. 
What evidences have we then of a future 6tatc, or that 
the body ever revives, or that the soul does not enter on 
some condition of ignorance and forgetfulness of the past, 
if not of annihilation ; or that it is not, according to a 
favorite idea of many ancients, reabsorbed into the great 
Deity, — which some say is meant by " returning to tho 
God who gave it ?" 

Bishop Warburton, in his work on "The Divine Legation 
of Moses," asserts that the fact of a future state of rewards 



152 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



and punishments belongs so necessarily to such a being 
as man, that it must be generally received without any 
special revelation, except in the first instance, to the pa- 
rents of the human race ; and that it was purposely left 
out of the Mosaic system and writings, in order that the 
universal sentiment of mankind should establish it. He 
shows, in his learned work, how all legislators and phi- 
losophers, in every age and land, had made it a part of 
their system, and that the founders of every form of relig- 
ious worship had done the same. He is, however, generally 
regarded as a bold, daring, and somewhat unsafe theorist 
on this subject, though in most other respects a sound di- 
vine. Although life and immortality are brought to light 
by the gospel, by reason of the greater clearness with 
which a future state is revealed by our Lord and his apos- 
tles, yet it is evident that they speak of it as believed by 
the saints of the old dispensation. 

To suppose the Jews ignorant of a future state would 
be to place them in the scale of religious knowledge 
lower than other nations. For Bishop Warburton main- 
tains that all the Gentile nations had such a belief, while 
he labors to prove that all the passages of the Old Testa- 
ment which have been supposed to assert this, have no 
reference to the subject. When it is said that "life and 
immortality are brought to light by the gospel," may we 
not suppose that this had reference to the ignorance and 
doubts of the heathen, even of their philosophers, rather 
than the people of God ? "When do we find any of the 
Old Testament saints expressing doubts as to their future 
existence, as Socrates and others of the philosophers did ? 
We must suppose that the Jews had a more certain belief 
in a future state than any other nation, although they 
may have seen all things pertaining to it " as through a 
glass darkly." 

Our Lord speaks of God " being the God of Abraham, 



IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, ETC. 



153 



of Isaac, and of Jacob," in such a manner that none can 
doubt but that he recognized the doctrine of a future 
state as held by them and the Jews of old. St. Paul, in 
speaking of the believing fathers in olden times, expressly 
says that " they were only strangers and pilgrims on 
earth;" that "they desire a better country, that is an 
heavenly;" that "God had prepared for them a city;" 
and that " they expected a better resurrection." 

To suppose that the ancient Jews did not look for a 
future state, would be to question St. Paul's inspiration. 
In the book of Job, who, though not one of the He- 
brew race, but an Arahian, lived and wrote somewhere 
about the time of Moses, when there were still some 
pious persons in the Eastern world not of the line of 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we have a strong declaration 
as to the resurrection of the body, as well as to the im- 
mortality of the soul ; " I know (he says) that my Re- 
deemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day 
upon the earth. And though after my skin worms de- 
stroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God : whom I 
shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not 
another."' — Job xix. 25. 

That such wa- the belief of the Jewi.-h rabbis, none ac- 
quainted with their writings can question. There was, 
about the time of our Saviour's appearance, a sect of un- 
believers, — the Saddncees, — who rejected both the doctrine 
of the resurrection and the Immortality of the soul ; but 
they were the exceptions to the general ride, just as infi- 
dels now are exceptions to the well-known fact that the 
great body of persons among us are believers in Christ. 
The dissolute lives of the Saddncees, it is well known, cast 
great discredit on their system. 

When, therefore, we find it written by Moses that 
u Enoch walked with (rod ; and he was not, for God took 
him," and that in the New Testament he is spoken of as 



154 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



having been translated to heaven without the usual pro- 
cess of dissolution, on account of his eminent piety, we 
must regard this case as an early testimony in the infancy 
of the world, not only to the immortality of the soul, but 
to the resurrection of the body, as was that of Elijah ages 
after, and as will be the case at the end of the world with 
those who shall be found dwelling in the flesh, but who 
shall, together with the dead, rise from their graves, and 
be translated to heaven, if they have walked with God — 
such changes being effected in their bodies as shall be 
necessary. 

And surely if God can make new bodies of the remains 
of the old ones, or out of whatever he pleases, he can 
readily modify and perfect such as have never tasted 
death, or been laid in the grave. Our blessed Redeemer, 
who in his own person exemplified the resurrection of the 
body and the translation in the body, by rising from the 
grave and then in the presence of his disciples ascending 
up in the body, has promised to do both these for the 
quick and the dead on the last day. 

Let us now see what it is that ancient tradition, coming 
through other channels than our scriptures, can furnish in 
corroboration of this doctrine. In the history of the Atlan- 
tians, — a nation living near Mount Atlas, in Africa, — Ura- 
nus is said to have had many sons, only three of whom 
are mentioned ; as is the fact in the Mosaic history, which 
only mentions three of the sons of Adam, — Cain, Abel 
and Seth. Atlas, Chronus, and Hyperion are the three men- 
tioned in the Atlantian legend. One of these, Hyperion, 
is murdered by his brothers, Atlas and Chronus, who di- 
vided the empire between them. The former was a learned 
astronomer, and gave the name to Mount Atlas. He had 
a son called Hesperus, who pursued his father's studies, 
and was also eminent for his piety. Having one day 
ascended the mountain to make observations, he was sud- 



IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, ETC. 



155 



denly carried away by a whirlwind, and never was heard 
of afterwards. The people, venerating his piety, enrolled 
Mm among the immortals, and worshipped the new deity 
in the beautiful star of the evening. 

A similar legend is found in the antediluvian history of 
the ITindoos. A son of Adima and Siva kills his brother at 
a sacrifice. After the death of this holy personage, the earth 
is peopled by the descendants of the surviving brothers. 
One of these had a son named Dhruva, who gave himself 
up to the contemplation of the Supreme Being, and to the 
performance of religious austerities. His extraordinary 
piety gained him the favor of the Deity ; and, after deliver- 
ing many salutary precepts to mankind, he is translated to 
heaven without tasting death, where he still shines con- 
spicuous in the polar star. 

Among the idols worshipped by the Calmucks of Asia, 
there is one they call Zacca, the same with Buddha. 
They Bay that four thousand years ago he was only a sov- 
i ■!■■ ago prince, but on account of his unparalleled sanc- 
tity God took him to heaven alive. 

In the progress of these mythologies, however, the 
righteous Enoch melts into the character of righteous 
Noah, and the three Bons of the first parents into the three 

son- of Noah. 

Other traditions to the same effect may be collected 
from other mythologies, but the foregoing brief statement 
will suffice for this interesting account of Enoch's transla- 
tion. 

We al-o find tin: doctrine of the resurrection substan- 
tiated in the wild poetical mythology of the (ireeks, after 
they had turned all the old traditions of other nations into 
the licentious fictions of their own. Wherefore we read of 
I'acchu.- assuring Cadmus that by the help of Mars he 
should live forever in " The Isles of the Blessed." Jupiter 
is also said to have made Aganympha immortal. After 



156 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



the death of her husband Hercules, Allan ena is translated 
by Mercury into the pagan Elysium, and married to Rad- 
amanthus. There are other fables of the same kind tend- 
ing to show that there was an impression not only that 
men might, as to their souls, survive the death of the body, 
but live forever in the body. But if there were no other 
proof of such general belief in a future state, that most 
popular belief both among philosopers and priests, and 
the multitude also, of the transmigration of souls after 
death into new bodies, would establish it. 

Bishop Warburton, who wrote before the middle of the 
last century, says that even at that time " The doctrine of 
the Metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls, nourished 
with greater vigor in India than in any place or age in 
the world." It was probably the most universal belief 
that prevailed in the ancient world. Of course it sup- 
poses the existence of the soul after the death of the 
body. It supposes, also, a state of rewards and pun- 
ishments, — the good being rewarded by being trans- 
ferred into the bodies of good and honorable men, 
who should enjoy the favor of God in this world, in other 
bodies and conditions. The punishment of evil men was 
that of their being transferred into the bodies of evil and 
suffering men, and even of the lower and more ignoble 
animals. This was preferred, for the most part, to another 
popular opinion, that the soul was reabsorbed into the 
great deity or soul of the world, from whence it emanated. 
There is an allusion to this opinion in the question put to 
our Lord, as to the case of one born blind, whose eyes he 
opened. "Who did sin, this man or his parents, (was the 
question,) that he was born blind ? That is, did he sin in 
a previous body or state, and is he now being punished by 
being transferred into a sightless body ; or have his pa- 
rents been guilty of some crime, and has the judgment 
fallen upon their child ? 



IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, ETC. 



157 



Bishop Warburton speaks of a philsopher, Apolonius 
by name, who declares that as to the opinion that good 
men should be rewarded after death, he could not reach 
either the author or original of it. Plutarch affirms the 
same with great positiveness. Cicero, who wrote so fully 
and ably in his day against those who doubted or denied 
the doctrine, says, ""We conclude, from the consent of all 
mankind, that the soul is immortal." Seneca says, " The 
consent of all mankind, in their hopes and fears of a future 
state, is of no small moment to us." Ancient Greek his- 
torians tell us that the Egyptians, whose religion was of 
the earliest date, taught that the soul was immortal. The 
fact that they and other nations worshipped the gods in 
the human form, in the statues erected to them, proves 
that, though now supposed to be living and immortal, 
they were once mortal men. Plato argues in favor of the 
immortality of the soul from ancient tradition and the 
religion of his country, although his own view was rather 
a philosophical one, as will hereafter be seen. Bishop 
"Warburton says that the great lawgivers and founders of 
empires, who were afterwards deified themselves, and who 
taught the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, pro- 
fessed to have received their revelations from some god 
who had himself been a mortal, but was now immortal. 
Btnbo says that "The Indian Brahmins invented fables 
ahotit the immortality of the soul, after the manner of Plato." 
Plato, in Ids " Tiiiimeus,'' speaks of those endless punish- 
ments which the terrors of religion pronounce against the 
wicked from above and below, as calculated to cleanse the 
mind from vice. Zeleucus, an ancient writer and lawgiver, 
says, "Men should set before themselves the dreadful hour 
of death, when the memory of evil actions pa-t will seize 
the sinner with remorse." Cicero also speaks of those 
whose merits have raised them to heaven, as Hercules, 
1'iaccliiis, Arc, and advocates the erection of chapels in 



158 [. THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 

honor of those qualities which have raised men to this 
distinction. 

THE TESTIMONY OF THE MYSTERIES. 

The account which we have of the ancient mysteries, 
represents them, in their first and purest state, as designed 
to inculcate a holy and virtuous life in order to a happy 
immortality : ""While at death and leaving the body, the 
souls of the profane stick fast in the mire, those of the 
initiated, who were worthy, winged their flight to the 
habitation of the gods." " It was the end and drift of in- 
itiation," says Plato, " to restore the soul to that state from 
whence it fell as from its native state of perfection." "We 
shall have more to say on this subject in our chapter on 
the ancient mysteries. 

That there were those in ancient as well as in modern 
times who denied future and eternal punishment, is most 
true. They argued against it from their idea of the God- 
head, affirming that the Deity was incapable of anger, and 
could not thus punish. Much was written on this subject 
by the ancient fathers of the church, in their contests with 
some of the philosophers. Julius Caesar, before the time 
of Christ, held that opinion, and publicly maintained it 
before the Roman senate when defending Catiline, who 
was on trial for his life. He, being an Epicurean and an 
atheist, declared that death was no evil, as they who 
inflicted it imagined and intended it to be. Cato and 
Cicero, who advocated the death of Catiline, did not enter 
on any philosophical argument with Csesar, but simply 
affirmed that the doctrine of rewards and punishments had 
come down to them from their ancestors ; and that if it 
were not so, death would not be feared, and of course evil 
men would not be restrained from vice by the infliction 
of death." Cassar, however, in his Commentaries, furnishes 



IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, ETC. 



159 



us with a fact in confirmation of the doctrine. He declares 
that the Druids of Gaul held the imperishable nature of 
the sold. 

TESTIMONY OF HOMER. 

Long before the times of Plato, Cicero, and Caesar, the 
poets had held no dubious language on the subject. Ho- 
mer, first of poets, and whose Iliad is the oldest of pagan 
writings extant, (except in fragments,) makes his hero, 
Achilles, say, 

11 'Tis true, 'tis certain, man though dead retaias 
Part of himself, — the immortal mind remains ; 
The form subsists without the body's aid; 
Aerial semblance, and an empty shade." 

TESTIMONY OF MODERN POETS. 

The wonls which Addison has put into the mouth of 
Cat", when about to make trial of it, are worthy of inser- 
tion here, and will be read with interest by the young. 
On the night before he put an end to himself, he is made 
to read the argument of Plato, and thiin does he speak: 

'• Ft must be so. Plato, thou reasonest well ; 
Kl-e, whence this fund desire, 
This longing after iminorUdity ? 
This [his sword] in a moment brings me to an end ; 
But this [ Plato's book] informs me I shall never die. 
The soul, secure of her existence, smiles 
At the drawn dapger ami defies its |>oint. 
The stars may fade away, the sun himself 
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, 
Hut thou -hall flourish in immortal youth, 
l'nhurt amid the roar of eleiin-nt-. 
The wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds." 



160 THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 

Shakspeare may also furnish us with some useful thoughts 
on the subject : 

" For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely ; 
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, 
The insolence of office ; the spurns 
That patient merit of the unworthy takes, 
When he himself might his quietus make 
With a bare bodkin,— 

But that the dread of something after death — 
The undiscovered country, from whose bourne 
No traveller returns — puzzles the will, 
And makes us rather bear the ills we have, 
Than fly to others that we know not of." 

Dr. Young, in his " Night Thoughts," has also clothed 
in strong language some of these arguments, which Plato, 
Cicero, and others, ancient and modern, have used in fa- 
vor of the immortality of the soul : 

" The man, immortal, rationally brave, 
Dares rush on death, because he cannot die. 
'Tis immortality and that alone, 
Amid life's pains, abasements, emptiness, 
The soul can raise, can elevate and fill. 
Religion, Providence, an after state : 
Here is firm footing, here is solid rock ; 
This can support us — all is sea beside. 
'Tis immortality alone can solve 
That darkest of enigmas, human hope ; 
Of all the darkest, if at death we die." 

" Man but dives, in death, — 
Dives from the sun, in fairest day to rise ; 
The grave, his subterranean road to bliss. 
Eternity struck off from human hope, 
Man is a monster, the reproach of heaven : 
If human souls, why not angelic, too, 
Extinguished, and a solitary God 
O'er ghastly ruins frowning from his throne." 



IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, ETC. 161 

" Man, ill at ease, 
Poor in abundance, famished at a feast, 
Sighs on for something more — 
Oh ! for a bliss unbounded." 

" Man must soar ; 
An obstinate activity within will toss him up. 
Souls immortal must always heave 
At something great" 

Some remarks on the state of souls between death and 
the resurrection, will conclude this chapter. 

As the great consummation of happiness to men in a 
future state does not take place until after its reunion 
with the body and glorification in the presence of the 
exalted Saviour, it has ever been an interesting inquiry 
among Christians as to what its condition and locality 
will be. Only so far as God may have thought proper to 
reveal it, may we feel justified in pursuing the inquiry. 

"We read of paradise, and Abraham's bosom, as places 
of rest and peace, in which the souls of the faithful 
ar«- admitted immediately after the Separation from 
the body. As to their locality, and whether there be 
anything which can properly be called form around de- 
parted npirits, nothing is said so as to make it an article 
of our creed. It was an old dispute among the philoso- 
phers, the Jewish doctors, and the early fathers, whether 
anything but God himself coidd be regarded as pure 
spirit, as incorporeal in the strictest sense of the word ; 
and whether the souls of men could exist, and act, and en- 
joy themselves without some kind of body, however tight 
and ethereal. We do not mean to enter upon any such 
Investigation, but merely to speak of the opinions held on 
the subject. As to the locality of the place of departed 
BpiritB) until the final consummation, the most wise have 
i elx. nie to speculate. It is sufficient that the scriptures 
have declared that "we shall be with Christ ;" that wo 
11 



162 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



shall enjoy his presence. Whoever would see this sub- 
ject fully discussed, may refer to the learned Dr. Cud- 
worth's " Intellectual Philosophy," and to authorities in 
Bishop Hobart's " Treatise on the State of the Departed." 

The ancient philosophers and the poets seem generally 
to have favored the idea of some light ethereal forms for 
good and evil angels, and for the inhabitants of their 
Elysium and Tartarus, thinking that such were necessary 
to their suffering and enjoyment. Plato speaks of some 
luciform bodies which were worn by apparitions or de- 
parted shades when revisiting the earth, as they do, ac- 
cording to the opinions of some. 

These genii or demons, and their lesser gods who were 
once mortals, were believed to have bodies or forms of a 
more spiritual or ethereal nature than the gross bodies of 
men. Thus, Homer, speaking of the blood of Venus 
shed at the siege of Troy, says, 

" Unlike our gross, diseased, terrestrial blood." 

He makes Achilles thus speak of the apparition of Patro- 
clus : 

" This night my friend, in battle lost, 
Stood at my side — a pensive, plaintive ghost. 
E'en now familiar as in life he came, 
Alas ! how different, — yet how like the same! " 

Thus, also, Virgil takes his hero ^Eneas down into Tar- 
tarus and Elysium, the two grand divisions of Hades or 
the place of departed spirits. JEneas sees all the various 
orders of ghosts, and hears their songs or groans; wit- 
nesses their happiness or misery ; converses with his fa- 
ther Anchises, — but when he would embrace him, the 
ethereal form eludes his grasp : 

" Then thrice around his neck his arms he threw, 
And thrice the flitting shadow slipped away." 



IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, ETC. 



163 



Now shadows, we know, are not absolutely and entirely 
spiritual things ; there is some kind of substance in them. 

This general disposition, then, to clothe all created spirits 
with some kind of form, however subtle, is one step to- 
wards the doctrine of the resurrection. 

Virgil makes some of the ghosts below, in their aerial 
forms, expectants of more substantial bodies upon earth 
again. It may not be heresy to think, with some of the 
fathers, that even in paradise, or Abraham's bosom, the 
departed spirits may be clothed upon with some spiritual 
form, which may enable them to enjoy each others' so- 
ciety the better, and exercise the more readily love to the 
exulted Redeemer; but this is a subject not written upon 
in scripture, and we must not be wise upon that which 
is written. 

APPENDIX. 

The intermediate state and the resurrection are sub- 
jects of such deep interest to man as to justify some 
further remarks. 

"We have s;iid it was the common opinion that God 
alone, of all beings, was " simple, uncombined spirit," — 
•• without body, parts, or passions." The scripture repre- 
sents him as "dwelling in the light which no man can 
approach unto." Both of the St. Johns declare that " no 
BSD can see God at any time." For man, composed of 
flesh and blood, to see a simple spirit, unconnected with 
miitt. r. is ;in impo-Mhilify. " Xo man," said our Lord, 
"has seen the Father, save he which is from God : he 
hath seen the Father." " The only begotten Son, who is 
in the bosom of the Father, he hath deelared him," saith 
St. John ; that is, hath revealed him to us, as far as he 
\t intelligible. God is revealed to us in the person of 
Christ ( 'hrist, though 41 the very God," became " very 
man" also, by taking man's nature upon him, so that two 



164 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



whole and perfect natures were joined together in one 
person, and thus constituted " Emmanuel, God with 
us." Some consider that when the Holy Ghost came 
down on the Saviour in the form of a dove, and on the 
apostles in fiery tongues, there was a kind of union 
of the Godhead with matter ; hut in Christ's incarnation 
" the Godhead and manhood were joined together in one 
person, never to be divided." Before this inseparable 
union of the divine and human natures in the person of 
Christ, as born of the Virgin Mary, our Lord, on various 
occasions, appeared in the form of man, as to Abraham 
with the two angels ; to Nebuchadnezzar in the fiery fur- 
nace ; to Joshua, as captain of the host of Jehovah ; — and 
some suppose that in this form he may, long before, have 
visited other worlds on errands of love and mercy — though 
this must be all speculation. Certain however it is, that 
in his incarnate state he has to do with other worlds since 
the redemption of man. St. Peter says, " Jesus Christ 
is gone into heaven ; angels and authorities and powers 
being made subject to him." St. Paul tells us that God 
hath put all things under his feet, not only in this world, 
but in that which is to come. All the angels are di- 
rected to worship him. By him the Father reconciles 
all things to himself, whether in heaven or earth. All 
things, whether on earth or in heaven, are to be " gath- 
ered together in him." As human nature seems to be 
the highest type in creation, and, when repaired and 
clothed with spiritual bodies, the saints shall be as the 
angels, or equal to the angels, it is reasonably inferred 
that the angels have bodies like unto those of men, though 
purified and exalted so as to commune with the glorified 
Saviour. On general principles, too, it is believed that 
all orders of beings, except God himself, have more or 
less of the material about them. "Who can object to this, 
seeing that our Lord himself condescends to wear a glo- 



IMMORTALITY OF TIIE SOUL, ETC. 



165 



nous body, and reign over them in the same ! The fallen 
angels may once have had bodies like those of men, only 
more spiritual, more like those of the redeemed in heaven, 
and may have lost them through sin and death. They may, 
however, retain light aerial forms, as some ancient traditions 
report, by which they hover over the earth ready to do 
evil, so far as permitted. They also may be in some in- 
termediate state, awaiting their final doom with the wick- 
ed of earth, when they shall both be cast into some place 
of endless suffering. Where the locality is in which the 
souls of those who have lived on earth shall remain until 
the resurrection, I undertake not even to form an opinion. 
That the souls of the faithful will be with Christ and in a 
state of happiness, though looking forward to a higher one 
when clothed upon with new and spiritual bodies, we 
kanst believe. We must also believe that the wicked are 
in misery, and awaiting greater misery. We read of 
Tophet, or hell, of paradise, or Abraham's bosom, as the 
abodes of the wicked and the righteous. The gehenna, or 
hell of the Jews seems to answer to the Tartarus of the pa- 
u !i.-n-w;i- ^rrat .-, 1 1 li\ -ri ! i lt : while the paradise of the 
Jews corresponded with the Elysium of the heathen, 
where delightful scenes abounded. 

Growing out of the belief that none but God himself 
is a pure disembodied and invisible spirit ; that the 
spirits of men, in their disembodied state, have some ethe- 
r al form, — there has been in all ages the belief that such 
have been able sometimes to manifest themselves to the 
eyes of men. They were called manes, shades, or ghosts, 
among the ancients, and are called apparitions, or spirits, 
among ourselves. If disembodied spirits have some material 
forms or vehicles, though light, subtle, and ethereal coin- 
pared with the bodies of men aow, and even after the rcs- 
urrection, none can say that it is impossible but that God 
may permit them to visit earth, and make themselves, in 



166 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



some measure, visible to the human eye. That so gen- 
eral an impression should have prevailed renders it a 
most probable truth that some have been real ; but as 
dreams, though sometimes true, generally prove false, so 
with apparitions ; for the most part they are only vivid 
dreams of the night, or of the day, by an excited imagi- 
nation, which represents as real what are but phantoms. 
That God has not intended this to be a channel of commu- 
nication between the two worlds for much effect is evident 
from the fact that such few instances are on sacred record 
where it was used by himself. In the book of Job, Eliphaz 
says an image passed before his eyes, though he could 
not see the precise form thereof, and a voice spake to him, 
" Shall mortal man be more just than God ? " Samuel 
may have appeared to Saul at Endor. Moses and Elias, 
though long before dead, appeared on the mount of 
transfiguration, together with our Lord, and were seen of 
three disciples, Peter, James, and John. Angels appear- 
ed at the sepulchre of our Lord, in the human form. 
God may have permitted such apparitions among men, at 
other times and in other countries, to strengthen the belief 
of the continued existence of friends after death. But 
the answer of Abraham to the rich man who wished one 
sent from the dead to warn his brethren who were upon 
the earth, shows of how little avail such visits would be 
in comparison with the warning which we all have : 
" They have Moses and the prophets ; if they hear not them, 
neither would they believe though one rose from the dead." 

THE KESUKRECTIOiN' OF THE BODY. 

But a much more important subject than the uncertain 
condition of disembodied spirits deserves some additional 
remarks, viz., the resurrection of the body. The prophet 
Daniel says, " They that sleep in the dust of the earth 
shall awake — some to everlasting life, and some to shame 



IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, ETC. 



167 



and everlasting contempt." "When onr Lord said to sor- 
rowing Martha, " Thy brother shall rise again," she 
answered, most emphatically, " I know that he shall rise 
again in the resurrection at the last day." Infidels of that 
day, as well as since, have asked, " But how are the dead 
raised up, and with what body do they come ? " The 
apostle's reply was, "Thou fool," etc. To some modern 
infidels, raising this same question, one well replied, " It 
was time enough for them to ask that question when God 
should commit to them the task of raising the dead." 
Can any doubt the power of God to raise the dead, who 
believes that he made Adam out of the dust of the earth ? 
But it is said, How can all the particles of man's body be 
collected together into one place and be united into one 
body, after having been scattered through the earth, and 
so often changed its form by entering into other bodies, 
and seeing that the same person so often parted with much 
of the material of his own body and took on him other 
material, and thus was not the same identical person as to 
body at dili'erent periods of his life ? To this we might 
answer, "What is this world but one great alembic or 
chcuii*t\s vc-,el, in which all the.^c materials are found 
in chaotic confusion ; and what is God but the mighty 
Obendst, who can, by the infusion of his power, bring 
together all the particles composing each body, or as 
much as is needful for its renewal "Who shall deny this 
power to God? But it is not necessary that the new 
bodies shonld be composed of the very same particles 
which at one time made up the earthly man, any more 
than that the grain of wheat on the stalk should be of the 
same particles with the grain which h sown in the earth 
in order to constitute a connexion between them, or that 
the man of forty should be of the very same particles 
with the youth of twenty, in order to constitute an iden- 
tity of nature. Every man feels that he is the same ideu- 



168 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



tical, responsible person each successive year that he was 
on the preceding, notwithstanding all the changes that 
have passed npon his body and all the varied operations of 
his mind. No man need expect to escape the judgment 
of God on the great day, by reason of any such change 
of material which may take place in his new body. Some 
have sought to escape the necessity of using any material, 
either new or old, for the reconstruction of man, by an 
ingenious theory derived from the comparison of St. Paul 
in his noble chapter on the resurrection. The grain of 
wheat, they say, has a germ in itself from which the plant 
grows and at length matures into a new grain ; so the 
immortal part of man, consisting of soul and spirit, has a 
germ in it which is made by God to grow into a new and 
spiritual body. They say that the apostle Paul, in his 
Epistle to the Thessalonians, speaks of the spirit and soul, 
as well as body ; and, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, of 
the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. They consider 
the word Zoe to mean the immortal soul of man, and 
Psyche as meaning the spirit or life, and which is that 
light material, covering, or vehicle, which still adheres 
to the soul in its separate state. This, they say, is 
the germ which enlarges and matures into the new body. 
But, whatever be the merit of this theory as regards 
psychology or theology, do we stand in need of any such 
in order to the practical understanding of St. Paul's doc- 
trine of the resurrection % God promises to make us new, 
spiritual, glorious, incorruptible bodies, instead of our 
present corruptible ones — to clothe our souls with the 
same — to make them like unto the glorious body of our 
Lord. Should not this satisfy us ? When we see all na- 
ture dying and reviving again, can we not trust God to 
do the same with these dying bodies, believing that he 
who raised up Jesus from the dead will raise up us also, 
and prepare us to be ever with the Lord ? 



CHAPTER X. 



ON THE DEATH OF AUEL, AND THE INSTITUTION OF SACRIFICES. 

Lv the brief and rapid history of man, we are soon 
brought to the execution of the tearful sentence of death, 
— the penalty of disobedience. God had said to our first 
parents, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt 
hiircly die." But it was an extended day, through the long- 
suffering patience of God. It is supposed that the infliction 
was delayed until the one hundred and twenty-eighth 
year of the life of Cain. This is inferred from the fact 
that the birth of Seth, who was given in the place of the 
murdered Abel, occurred the year after that tragic event, 
that is, tli.- i.ne hundred and thirtieth year of Adam's life 
— Genesis iv. 25 ; v. 3. 

Hut if the delay was merciful, the occasion and circum- 
stance of its intlicti«>ii were most awful. The first-born 
of the children of Adam imbued his hands in the blood 
ai the second. That fond mother, who in joyous hope had 
said at Ids birth, "I have gotten a man from the Lord,'' 
or. a- the learned Light foot and others translate it. " I 
have gotten a man, even the Lord, or Jehovah himself,*' 
the promised Deliverer, — is doomed to see that son a mur- 
derer, following the example of the wicked one. who, out 
of envy, slew the hopes of our first parents by their se- 
duetion in paradi.»e, and wa- thu> "a murderer from the 

huflinninu " 

Truly may it be said of Cain, "he was of his father 
the .lev i|." How deeply atfeeted mii.st our first parents 
* have been at seeing the bitter fruits of their own -in thus 



170 THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 

exhibiting themselves ■ in their first-born child ! How 
keen their misery in beholding in him a fratricide, instead 
of a Saviour — themselves condemned as though them- 
selves the guilty ones ! 

Montgomery, in his " World before the Flood," has set 
forth this feature in penitent Adam, in a very touching 
manner, in the following lines : 

" Children were his delight : they ran to meet 
His soothing hand, and clasp his honored feet, 
While, midst their fearless sport supremely blest, 
He grew, in heart, a child among the rest. 
Yet, as a parent, naught beneath the sky 
Touched him so quickly as an infant's eye. 
Joy from its smile of happiness he sought ; 
Its flash of rage sent horror through his thought ; 
His smitten conscience felt as fierce a pain 
As if he fell from innocence again." 

How aggravated must have been their grief at thought 
of the very institution, which was appointed for the en- 
couragement of their hopes and the exercise of their faith, 
being the occasion of this great sin ! The sacred narra- 
tive informs us that it was committed immediately after 
a sacrifice, and in consequence of the rejection of Cain's 
offering and the acceptance of Abel's. We will not, 
however, at this time, consider this part of the subject, 
as it will properly belong to the question of sacrifice ; but 
proceed to remark on the punishment of Cain, who was 
driven out from the presence of the Lord, (probably from 
some place contiguous to Eden, where the Lord manifest- 
ed himself to the righteous,) and became a fugitive and a 
vagabond on the earth. In bitterness did he exclaim, 
" My punishment is greater than I can bear ; every one 
that findeth me shall slay me. " But this the Lord for- 
bade, setting a mark upon him in order to prevent it. 
The whole world became his prison and penitentiary. 



OX THE DEATH OF ABEL. 



171 



None were allowed to kill him, although, after the flood, 
God gave an universal law, " Whoso sheddeth man's 
blood, by man shall his blood be shed."'* 

Surprise has been expressed that Cain should speak as 
if the earth was thus early filled with people, so that, go 
where he would, his life would be sought after. To this 
it is answered, that if, in the few hundred years after 
Jacob with his family of seventy persons settled in Egypt, 
they so increased that in the time of Moses there were 
six hundred thousand fighting men, it is not to be won- 
dered at that when Cain was one hundred and twenty- 
eight years old there should be in that part of the world 
which was first settled, sufficient numbers to justify the 
apprehensive language of the first fugitive from justice. 
But God determined that he should not be punished with 
immediate death, but rather be made the wretched victim 
of remorse, and see a long line of wicked descendants, 
many of whom would upbraid him with his crime. 

Montgomery has also treated this with deep pathos : 

"Eastward on Eden's early peopled plain, 
Where Abel perished by the hand of Cain, 
The murderer from his Judge's presence fled : 
Thence to the rising sun his offspring spread. 
Hut he, the fugitive of care and guilt, 
Forsook the haunts he chose, the homes he built ; 
While fili;il nations hailed him sire and chief, 
Empire nor honor brought his soul relief: 
He found, where'er he roamed, uncheered, unhlcst, 
No pause from suffering, and from toil no rest." 

Such have been the wretched lives of many of every age, 
whom justice has permitted to escape, until, unable any 
longer to bear the intolerable burthen, they have added 



• Some have rendered the pn.isngr, " My punishment is greater than I cuu 
bear. Is my «in too great to tie forgiven ?" 



172 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



suicide to murder, thus doubly violating that law which 
says, " Thou shall do no murder." 

Let us now speak more particularly of the time and 
occasion of this wicked deed. Both were sacred — the 
day and the act, and perhaps the place. 

In process of time, or in the end of the days, — that is, as 
generally understood by the learned, on the Sabbath or 
some appointed time, — Cain and Abel brought their offer- 
ings to the Lord, at some appointed place, from which 
they went into the field where the fatal deed was done. 

The act of sacrifice was a religious one, doubtless a 
commandment of the Lord ; for God says, "In vain do we 
worship him, after the commandments of men ;" but the 
result was envy, hate, and murder. The enemies of relig- 
ion and infidels exclaim, concerning this and many other 
things connected with religion : " Heu quantum est re- 
ligio causa malorum." " "What strife, what wars, what 
bloodshed and misery have grown out of religion ! " 

It becomes us to inquire whether it is not the abuse, 
not the use of religion ; and therefore irreligion and not 
religion which is the true cause of the evils complained 
of. A writer of the New Testament tells us the cause of 
this murder was the hatred of one brother towards the 
other, the result of his own evil works. On this account 
was the murder committed. 

Both of the offerings were right in themselves, if pre- 
sented in the right spirit. The sacrifice of the wicked 
may be an abomination to the Lord, if not offered in a 
right spirit, no matter what the sacrifice be. The sac- 
lifices of the Lord are a broken spirit and a contrite 
heart. Nothing can be accepted without these. Moses, 
who by God's direction appointed so many bloody sacri- 
fices, was meek above all men upon earth. 

Let us see if we cannot find out why Abel's sacrifice 
of a lamb was accepted, and Cain's offering of the fruits 



OX THE DEATH OF ABEL. 



173 



of the earth was rejected, although both are so plainly 
enjoined in God's word. 

We do not read of anything good or bad in either of 
these brothers before this event, which should make the 
difference manifested by God in accepting the one and 
rejecting the other, though there must have been a differ- 
ence in their hearts before God. The apostle tells us that 
" by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacri- 
fice than Cain," where he is speaking of the faith of a 
penitent sinner towards Christ. This serves as a key to 
unlock the mystery. Moses is spoken of as believing in 
Christ, in the midst of all his offerings. Cain's faith is 
not spoken of. Must there not have been something de- 
ficient in that, as there is in many proud moralists who 
place their religion in some love and obedience to God, 
but have no sense of sin and feel no need of a Saviour ? 
May not this have been the first beginning of infidelity 
in the world, — the proud rejection of the hope set before 
us in the Redeemer, " the Lamb slain from the foundation 
of the world ? " 

Scarcely had our first parents sinned, when a promise 
was made of some deliverer. "The 6eed of the woman 
shall bruise the serpent's head" was supposed to contain 
the promise of a Saviour in the person of one who is called 
" the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world " for 
the sins of man. To this the sacrifice of Abel had reference, 
while that of Cain had none, but was mere natural religion 
offering up something to God by an unhumbled creature. 
The narrative of Moses surely favors this view of it. 

When Cain became wroth at the rejection of his sacri- 
fice, the Lord said to him, "Why art thou wroth, and why 
is thy countenance fallen ? " "If thou doest well, shalt thou 
not be accepted?" that is, If thou art a holy man, and 
doest no wrong, shalt thou not be accepted for this? — 
"and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door;" that 



174 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



is, a. sin offering; a Lamb lieth or croucheth at the door, 
whom thou mayest slay and offer for thy sins as a penitent 
believer. 

Such is the translation and interpretation of this passage 
by able commentators, though there is some difference of 
opinion about it. But all believe that the sacrifice of 
Abel had reference to the promised deliverance of the 
human race, by one to be born of a woman ; and that all 
the animal sacrifices ordained by God were typical of him, 
and derived their virtue from him who was emphatically 
called " the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," 
and who, in the fulness of time, was offered up in the per- 
son of Christ for the sins of men. This, indeed, may seem 
foolishness to the Greek, andbeastumblingblocktotke Jew, 
and doubtless appeared so to Cain, who professed a differ- 
ent sort of religion. It has so appeared to numbers in all 
ages, whose reason and humanity are shocked at the sacri- 
fice of innocent animals. Thus Plato, the philosopher, 
says, "At first no animals were offered, but only the fruits 
of the earth and trees." And Ovid, though not ques- 
tioning the early practice of animal sacrifices, yet pleads 
for the unoffending victims : 

" Quam meruistis, Ores, placidnm pecns, 
Yitaque magis, quam, morti juvabis 
Non bove mactato celestia numina gandent." 

As to the reasonableness of the revelation of aEedeemer 
to our first parents, much might be said. 

If God, at the first formation of man, made himself 
human to him as the Creator and Lawgiver ; taught him 
speech and all other things necessary for his existence and 
happiness, in his first state, — and who can doubt this? — then, 
when man's condition was so changed by the fall, if God 
determined on doing more for him suitable to his fallen 
state, may we not expect that he would reveal this also to 



ON THE DEATH OF ABEL. 



175 



him ? Is not this necessary to his cooperation with God 
in applying the remedy ? If God determined to save man 
by the death and atonement of his Son Jesus Christ, and 
by the renewing influence of his Spirit, is it not reasonable 
that he should reveal this by such means and in such meas- 
ure as shall seem best to him ? Is it unreasonable to be- 
lieve that God taught our first parents that this redemp- 
tion was the great object of animal sacrifices, and that 
they looked forward to the great sacrifice which gave vir- 
tue to all others ? 

Our first mother expected such a Deliverer to be born of 
her, but was disappointed. Doubtless other antediluvian 
mothers expected it. After the flood, the expectation con- 
tinued ; and after the separation of Abraham and his pos- 
terity from the rest of the world, Jewish mothers were 
expecting it still more, as the Messiah was to be in the 
line of Abraham. All the mythologies in the world were 
full of this tradition, and many nations claimed to have 
received the fulfilment of it. Nothing was so well calcu- 
lated to humble men and to produce penitence, as the belief 
that his sins were so great as to require the incarnation 
and sacrifice of God himself, in the form of man : all the 
bloody sacrifices typified this. 

That they were appointed by God may be inferred from 
the fact that he accepted and thus approved of Abel's 
sacrifice, and of the same kind of sacrifices in so many 
other instances afterwards, as of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, 
etc., etc., and under the Levitical dispensation. If they 
were mere commandments of men, would they thus have 
honored them ? 

Moses, indeed, gives us no account of the divine institu- 
tion of sacrifice before the flood, but the particular manner 
in which he mentions them shows conclusively its previ- 
ous and early existence, and of course its establishment 
by God himself. 



176 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Although the first and strongest and most natural feeling 
of man, when discarded from the favor of God, must have 
been, Plow can I recover it — how can I avert or postpone 
the threatened death ? yet surely the last thought of his 
mind and hope of his heart would be, that the death of 
some unoffending animal might propitiate God's favor, and 
avert his threatened death. That hope must come from 
some other source than man — even from God himself. 

The fact of there being skins of beasts used for clothing 
by our first parents makes it most probable that immedi- 
ately after the fall sacrifices were enjoined and practised; 
for we read nothing of the permission of animal food to 
man until the renewal of the human race after the flood. 
That sacrifices of animals prevailed before the flood is 
evident, also, from the fact that Noah, by the command of 
God, took with him into the ark such animals as were used 
in sacrifice, as well as others, and that his first act, after 
coming out of the ark, was to build an altar, and sacrifice 
to that God who had so wonderfully preserved him. 

In this we have the first of those sacrifices which, from 
the family of Noah, so soon spread through the whole 
world. 

I will not speak of the sacrifices of Abraham, Isaac, 
Jacob, and others, before the days of Moses ; nor will I 
speak of those specially appointed to the Jews, in whose 
ritual " almost all things were purged with blood ;" but 
I will proceed to show, according to the plan of this book, 
that the divine appointment of sacrifice, from the first, is 
one of the most universal traditions prevalent among men. 

Mr. Faber, who has examined this subject most exten- 
sively, affirms that " Throughout the whole world he finds 
a notion prevalent that the gods could only be appeased 
by bloody sacrifices ; and its universality proves that all 
nations have borrowed it from the same common source. 
There is no heathen people which can specify a time 



ON THE DEATH OF ABEL. 



177 



when it was without sacrifice. All have equally had it, from 
a time which canuot he reached by their genuine records." 
Tradition alone can he brought forward by the Gentiles 
to account for its origin. That tradition says, that " the 
Egyptian Moth, or Taut, (the same, he thinks, with Adam,) 
was the original inventor of sacrifices." Elsewhere it 
says that Osiris, — the same, he believes, with Dionusus, or 
Noah, — is the god who first instructed men in sacrifices. 

Janus, also, the first father, taught the Italians sacrifices. 
Phoroneus of Argos offered the first sacrifices to Juno. 
The Chinese Fohi raised seven kinds of animals for sac- 
rifices to the Great Spirit. The Babylonian Zizulhus, 
on quitting the ark, built an altar, and sacrificed to the 
gods. 

The same was said of the Grecian Deucalion. The same 
is said of the British IIu, who sailed over the flood, with 
seven companions, and was emphatically called the sacri- 
fices All of these trace the origin of sacrifices to one of 
the great fathers of the human family, Adam, or Noah, 
though called by various names according to the diversity 
of languages. There is no part of religious worship less 
changed than this, as to the modes of observing it, though 
the objects of worship have been so numerous and so varied. 

We will mention some few of the reasons assigned for 
animal sacrifices. Caesar, the infidel of Rome, says that 
the Druids of Gaul held that unless the life of man was 
given for the forfeited life of man, the Deity of the im- 
mortal gods could not be appeased. 

The Gothic, or Sythic Scandinavians laid it down as a 
principle, that the effusion of the blood of animals appeased 
the anger of the gods, and their justice turned aside upon 
the victims those strokes which were destined for men. 

Herodotus informs us that the Egyptians, in his day, 
having cut off the head of the animal, heaped many im- 
precations upon it. The mode of imprecation was the 
12 



178 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



wishing that whatever evil was to befall the sacrificer 
himself, or Egypt, might fall upon that head : in conse- 
quence of which none would on any account eat of the 
head of a beast. 

Such, says Mr. Eaber, was the sentiment of the Athe- 
nians and Massilians, in their remarkable animal sacrifice 
of a man for the welfare of the state. They loaded him 
with the most dreadful curses. They prayed that the wrath 
of the gods might fall upon his devoted head, and thus be 
diverted from the rest of the citizens. They solemnly 
called upon him to be their ransom and their redemption, 
life for life, and body for body. After this ceremony, they 
cast him into the sea as an offering to Neptune. 

In the history of the Chinese empire, " Ching Tang," it is 
stated that in a drought of seven years the sacrifice of a 
man was required. The aged monarch offered himself as 
a victim, with prayers that God would accept his death 
as an expiation for the sins of the people. The will, 
however, was accepted for the deed, as in the case of 
Abraham with his son Isaac. The Jewish rabbis, in 
their books, are full of the same, and to this day the 
principle of sacrifice and substitute is set forth in the 
private offerings of Jewish families, — the national temple 
worship being done away, or impossible. Each father of 
a family, according to Buxtorf, brings forth a cock, and, 
striking it three times on the head, at each blow says, 
" May this cock be accepted in exchange for me. May 
he succeed to my place. May he be an expiation for me." 
Then choking the animal, he mentally confesses that he 
himself is worthy of strangulation. He then cuts its 
throat, silently reflecting that he is worthy to be slain. 
Then he dashes it to the ground, to denote that he is wor- 
thy to be stoned. Then roasts it at the fire, to show that 
he deserves to be burned. Thus the animal suffers four 
kinds of death. 



o:n~ the death of abel. 



179 



Iu the Indian mythology, we learn that Menu, their 
great father, had three sons, one of whom was slain in the 
great act of performing sacrifice. Now Adam, though he 
had other children afterwards, had three principal ones. 
The only ones mentioned were Cain, Abel, and Seth. 
These were doubtless the three sons who were celebrated 
as the Cabiri in the mysteries of the Corybantes and 
others, and who were sometimes confounded with the 
three sons of Noah, the father of the new world. The 
mysteries of the ancients were scenic representations, 
according to Faber, Bryant, and others, of the events of 
paradise, and the deluge. The slaughtered brother, men- 
tioned above, was consecrated as a god, and worshipped 
by the Thessalonians with bloody hands. 

The poets also are full of deprecating as well as expia- 
tory sacrifices. Homer makes one of his characters say to 
the ruthless hero of his poem, the vengeful Achilles, " It 
befits thee not to have a merciful heart. The very 
gods themselves are capable of being turned ; for with sac- 
rifices and vows, libations and the odor of victims, sup- 
pliant men turn them aside for their purposes whenever 
any one sins and transgresses." — Iliad of Homer, look 9th. 
" Gifts," says Ovid, in his " Art of Love," " captivate 
both men and gods. Jupiter himself is appeased by the 
gifts which are offered to him." — Book 3rd. Perseus, 
in allusion to the pagan sacrifices, which he satirizes, asks, 
" With what bribe would you purchase the ears of the 
gods ? Shall your oblation be the lungs and milk of a 
slaughtered victim?" 

That the divine appointment of sacrifices is the true 
view of the subject, though disputed by some who say 
" Man might have thought of it himself, and begun it 
without a command," we adduce the following opinion 
of a celebrated .Jewish rabbi : ''Abel (says I'hilo the 
Jew, who flourished in the first century of the Christian 



180 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



era) brought neither the same oblation as Cain, nor in the 
same manner ; but instead of things inanimate he brought 
things animate, and instead of later and secondary pro- 
ducts he brought the oldest and the first ; for he brought 
his sacrifices from the firstlings of his flock, and always 
fat, according to the divine command." 

The following, from St. Augustine, shows what this 
great father thought : " For the prophetic immolation of 
blood, testifying from the very commencement of the hu- 
man race the future passion of the Mediator, is a matter 
of great antiquity, inasmuch as we find that Abel, in 
Holy Scriptures, is the first to have offered up the pro- 
phetic immolation." 

The testimony of Athanasius concerning all those things 
which came down from the first ages, and including this 
among the rest, is very strong : " What Moses taught, 
those things his predecessor, Abraham, had preserved. 
And what Abraham had preserved, with these things 
Noah and Enoch were well acquainted, for they made a 
distinction between clean and unclean, and were accept- 
able to the Deity. Thus also in like manner Abel bore 
testimony, for he knew what he had learned from Adam, 
and Adam himself taught only what he had previously 
learned from the Lord." In this manner it must have 
been that the sacrifice of animals, typical of the great sac- 
rifice, came down from Adam to Noah and his three 
sons ; and, after the dispersion of Babel to the various 
nations and tribes of the earth, being corrupted in its pas- 
sage until human victims were immolated, and all the 
abominations of idolatry were introduced. It was neces- 
sary that the Lord should separate a peculiar people, and 
through them restore the entire sacrifice, and by his proph- 
ets denounce the abominations which had taken its 
place. Alluding to the bloody rites of ancient Palestine 
and the surrounding countries, where even infants were 



OX THE DEATH OF ABEL. 



181 



slaughtered by thousands, the prophet Micah exclaims, 
" Shall I give my first-horn for my transgression, the fruit 
of my body for the sin of my soul ? " The time was at 
hand when the sacrifice of all the animals was to be done 
away with, " for it was impossible that the blood of bulls 
and of goats should take away sin." The blood of Christ, 
" the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," was 
appointed for that purpose. In his blood alone was the 
atonement ; all other sacrifices ordained by God were 
types and prophecies of this. The bloody rites of pagan- 
ism were only the corruption and abuse of this ; but the 
abuse of anything must of course be subsequent to its 
use, and thus establishes it. Such is the principle upon 
which the argument of our book is founded. 

To the foregoing I add something from the learned my- 
cologist, Bryant, taken from Sanchoniathon, the ancient 
historian of Phoenicia. lie speaks of the sacrifice by the 
god Chronus (the same as El or Ilus) of his son to his fa- 
ther Ouranus, and whose example was followed in the 
nation by the establishment of an expiatory sacrifice, which 
was considered as peculiarly mystical, having reference to 
things yet to come. After giving a full account of it, Mr. 
J'rvant concludes: "According to this, El, the supreme 
deity, whose associates were the Elohim, wa6 in process 
of time to have a son, well beloved, his only begotten, 1 to 
be conceived of grace,' as some render it, but, according 
to my interpretation, * of the fountain of light.' He was 
to be offered up as a sacrifice to the father, by way of sat- 
isfaction and redemption, to atone for their sins and avert 
the just vengeance of God. He was to make the grand 
sacrifice, invested with the emblems of royalty.*' Mr. 
Bryant leaves it to his readers to Bay whether this does 
not refer to an early tradition of the sacrifice of Christ. 
He evidently inclines to that opinion, and calls it "a most 
wonderful piece of history." 



CHAPTEE XL 



THE CHERUBIM OP THE GARDEN OF EDEN, 

In the last verse of the third chapter of Genesis it is 
"written, that the Lord " drove out the man ; and he placed 
at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming 
sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the 
tree of life." Various translations of this passage, differing 
somewhat from each other, with differing explanations, 
have been given. Mr. Faber appears to have studied this 
subject very carefully, by the light of scripture and tradi- 
tion, and I shall give his statement. " We are told," he 
says, " by the sacred historian, that when the first pair was 
expelled from paradise, God placed on the eastern side of 
the garden certain beings called cherubim, to preserve the 
way to the tree of life. The particular form of these beings 
is not specified by Moses ; but it is evident that the Israel- 
ites were well acquainted with it, for we find that when 
the workmen were ordered to make cherubim for the 
tabernacle, no directions were given them as to the shape 
of these sacred hieroglyphics ; nor had they occasion to 
make the least inquiry concerning it." But, although 
Moses is silent on the subject, the prophet Ezekiel has 
provided us with a very minute and ample description of 
the cherubic emblems. From him we learn that they 
were compounded of four different animals, of which man 
was the most prominent, viz., the man, the bull, the lion, 
and the eagle. So remarkable an appearance (says Mr. 
Faber) as that of the cherubim, when they were first ex- 



CHERUBIM OF THE GARDEN. 



183 



liibited before the garden of paradise, could not easily be 
forgotten, even supposing that their manifestation was 
only of a temporary nature ; but, he adds, so far as I 
can judge, we have every reason to believe that it was 
not of a merely temporary nature. 

Under the Levitical economy, which was ancient patri- 
archism adapted to the peculiar circumstances of the 
children of Israel, and ordained by God for special pur- 
poses, the cherubic symbols were placed at the adytum, 
or entrance of the tabernacle, and afterwards in the 
sanctuary of the temple. As they were used for religious 
purposes under the law, so may we fairly infer that they 
were thus used under the patriarchal dispensation, both 
before and after the flood. The force of the words used 
by Moses is, that they were placed in a tabernacle, as 
they were afterwards under the Levitical dispensation. 
The flaming sword turning every way, is, he rather 
thinks, better rendered, "A bright blaze of bickering fire." 
Such was the manifestation of the divine glory, the cher- 
ubim of the Mosaic dispensation. This was called the 
Presence of tlie Lord, or the sJtekinah — the fiery symbol of 
the divine presence. 

No one was permitted to enter the holy of holies, where 
this manifestation of God was, but the high priest, and 
he only once a year — thus shadowing forth the exclusion 
of Adam and his posterity from paradise. When there- 
fore we read of the wicked Cain going forth from the 
"presence of the Lord " we must believe that lie left that 
part of the land where this manifestation of God was, 
and where Adam, and Seth, and the more pious antedilu- 
vians continued to reside. Noah and his sou.- were doubt- 
less familiar with the form of the cherubim, and al'ter the 
flood made use of it as a symbol of the divine presence. 
We may therefore reasonably expect to find it perverted 
and abused, as all other things are in the hands of men, 



184 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



when the various families or nations descending from 
Noah spread over the earth and adopted their various 
idolatries, while God thought proper to continue it in 
his true temple and worship according to its original 
design and use. Monstrous and ridiculous as these per- 
versions are in the heathen world, they are not more so 
than many other caricatures of divine institutions. 

But now let us see what this great hieroglyphic, — this 
first of hieroglyphics, the source of all others, — has led 
to in the heathen world, and what testimony to the 
divine institution may be drawn from the imitation 
and perversion and caricature of it in all ages and coun- 
tries. It is impossible that any candid person can take a 
survey of all the strange and monstrous compounds of 
which we read in ancient history and worship, without 
tracing them to a common origin. 

I first mention, as the opinion of Faber and other 
learned men, the celebrated dog Cerberus, with three 
heads, — the dog, the wolf, and the lion, — and who was the 
keeper of hell, in the Hades and Tartarus of the Greeks. 
Next, that of Hecate, or the infernal Diana, who is rep- 
resented as having the heads of a horse, a dog, and a 
lion. The Osiris of the Egyptians, and Molock and 
Mithras, are also many -headed. The Minotaur had the 
head of a man and the body of a bull. In the Zendevesta 
of the Persians two persons aj>pear, one at the beginning 
of the old and the other at the beginning of the new 
world, compounded of a man, a bull, and a horse. The 
bull-man of the Persians was doubtless the Centaur of the 
classical writers, which was composed of a man, a horse, 
and a bull. There was also an Orphic deity called Chro- 
nus, or Hercules, having the face of a man, the head of a 
lion, and the body of a dragon, to which some add the 
wings of a bird. The celebrated Sphinx had the head of 
a woman, the wings of a bird, the claws and body of a 



CHERUBIM OF THE GARDEN. 



185 



lion. Similar monsters may also be read of in the Ger- 
man, the Celtic, and the East India histories. In the 
Hindoo system and history, to which we have already 
referred, there is a being composed of a man and an eagle, 
which is placed in a pass leading to their high garden 
answering to the garden of Eden, which they call Gam- 
da. The most striking circumstance in his history is, 
that a part of his office is to keep off or prevent the 
approach of serpents. 

Herodotus also informs us that the Phoenix of Persian 
history is said to have resembled an eagle, and to have 
been placed in one of the mountains of the Indian Cau- 
casus, the same region claimed by the Hindoos as the 
seat of the garden of Eden, and the landing of the ark. 
A more probable account of the origin of these unnatural 
beings surely cannot be found than we have in the books 
of Genesis and Exodus. 

APPENDIX. 

To the foregoing we add the view taken by the learned 
Mr. Fairhairn, Professor of Divinity in the New Church 
College, at Glasgow, in the second volume of his elaborate 
work on the "Typology of Scripture." We only give 
the substance of it. 

As the tree of life in the midst of the garden was the 
special object which the cherultiiu was to keep or guard 
from the approach and D86 of man lest he should cat and 
live for ever, Mr. Fairhairn very properly inquires what 
this was, and what its virtue or effect. The Mosaic nar- 
rative is very brief, but other scriptures, cast 6ome light 
upon it. In relation to this, the saving of St. Augustine is 
verified: "In vetere Testamento novum latet ; et in novo 
vetus patet;" — that is, "In the < )ld Testament the New lies 
hid; and in the New the Old is brought to light." The 



186 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



tree of life was in the midst of the garden — its very posi- 
tion being significant. The effect upon the human frame, 
whether by something special in itself and differing from 
others, or by God's particular command, was peculiar. It 
perpetuated life. 

As angels may have certain kinds of bodies, that is, 
spiritual bodies, — and the saints after the resurrection cer- 
tainly will, — and as there must have been some means ap- 
pointed by God for the perpetuation of their existence, 
not having eternal life in themselves, so the lives of our 
first parents, had they continued faithful, may have been 
perpetuated by eating of the tree of life. We must be- 
lieve that this tree continued for some time after the ex- 
pulsion of our first parents from the garden, or else there 
would have been no necessity for the guard which was set 
over it. The sight of it, or knowledge of its existence, may 
have had a moral effect in letting them know what they 
had lost, and to encourage the hope of a recovery, if not 
in this world, yet in another. It was a symbol of immor- 
tal life. Through death there might be an entrance to a 
tree of life in the paradise above. The Jews thus under- 
stood it. " There are those," says one of their rabbis, 
" who say that the tree of life was not created in vain, but 
the men of the resurrection shall eat thereof and live for 
ever." The New Testament certainly encourages the 
hope of restoration to the tree of life in the heavenly 
paradise. " To-day," saith our Lord to the dying thief, 
" thou shalt be with me in paradise." In the book of 
Revelation, our Lord, by St. John, saith, " To him that 
overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life that 
is in the midst of the paradise of God." And again : 
" Blessed are they that keep his commandments, that they 
may have right to the tree of life, and enter in through the 
gates into the city." These passages seem evidently to 
recognize a divine virtue in this tree of paradise to per- 



I 



CHERUBIM OF THE GARDEN'. 187 

petuate human existence. That God conld give it this 
power or virtue no man can undertake to den}'. We 
must always remember, however, that the antetype or 
tiling signified is greater than the type or sign. Al- 
though something material may enter into the paradise, 
or new heaven and earth, yet will all be exalted, and the 
food of spiritual bodies be far superior to the manna of 
the Israelites, or the fabled nectar and ambrosia of the 
pagan deities in their happy abodes. 

And now what were these cherubim, and what their 
meaning and design ? Was not the flaming sword turn- 
ing every way, sufficient to guard the pass into Eden and 
terrify any daring intruder ? It certainly must have been 
designed to furnish instruction, and answer some moral 
end. Mr. Fairbairn considers the attempt to ascertain 
the meaning and derivation of the word cherub as hope- 
less, but thinks that other scriptures sufficiently estab- 
lish the symbolical character and intended use of the 
chembim. He regards them not as any unknown figures 
or imaginary existences, but as realities and specific forms 
of being, though not as a distinct and permanent order of 
beings, but only temporary, for certain important pur- 
poses, lie refers to the different places in scripture where 
they are mentioned, as in Exodus, Ezekiel, and Revelation, 
with the variations which are ascribed to them, though not 
at all affecting their main character and object. The gar- 
den of Eden is their first local residence. The next men- 
tion of them is in connection with the tabernacle, where 
the figures of them are over the ark and on either side 
of the mercy-seat — the throne of Jehovah — where God 
promised to meet Moses. It is said of him, that "lie 
dwelleth between the cherubim." Sometimes, as in the 
Apocalypse, they are called beasts, which is regarded as 
an unhappy translation of the original. At others they 
are called seraphim or burning ones, as in the sixth chap- 



188 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



» 



ter of Isaiah. More frequently they are called " living 
ones." This title is given to them not less than thirty 
times in Ezekiel and the Apocalypse. In reference to the 
title seraphim or burning ones, and to what is said of the 
flaming sword in the hand of the cherubim in Eden, and 
to the outstretched wings of them over the ark ready to 
fly, it is probable that God's ministers are compared to a 
flame of fire or lightning. 

In relation to the combined form of the cherubim, all 
agree that it was composed of a man, an ox, an eagle, 
and a lion — the man being predominant, so that the ap- 
pearance was human. These three creatures, together 
with man, make up, according to the most remote an- 
tiquity, the most perfect form of animal existence. 
Hence the old Jewish proverb : " Four are the highest in 
the world — the lion among the beasts ; the ox among 
tame cattle ; the eagle among birds ; man among all 
(creatures), but God supreme over all." So that these 
" living ones" were a combination of all creature life on 
earth, issuing from the fulness of the Creator. The amal- 
gamation or combination of all in one would exalt even 
man. In some things the lion, the eagle, and the ox sur- 
pass man, and are looked on with admiration if not envy. 
The lion exceeds him in strength ; the ox in patient endur- 
ance ; the eagle in swiftness, though all so inferior in 
other things. If any should still say, how hideous the 
combination, as seen in a picture and in the worship of 
the heathen, we bid them look on man himself, the lord 
of creation, the noblest of all, and see what a combination 
of various animals he is ; how many things he has in 
common with all. Nay, if disposed to disgust at combi- 
nation, let them remember that our Lord himself was a 
combination of very man and very God as to the spiritual 
part of him ; and that even as to the corporeal was this 
same compound ; and even in his glorified state will be 



CHERUBIM OF THE GARDEN. 



189 



rery man and very God, reigning over his saints. To 
this we add, that although these forms may, among the 
heathen, have heen caricatured and perverted to idola- 
try, yet it does not appear that the Jews, in any of their 
imitations or adoptions of pagan rites and idolatry, ever 
used these as instruments of false worship. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE PROGRESS OF CORRUPTION. 

It lias been made a question, whether among the cor- 
ruptions of the old world the sin of idolatry found its way. 

When we consider how soon it commenced, and how 
rapidly it spread among the descendants of Noah, — who 
has been well called " the orphan of the old and father of 
the new world," — and how much human nature is the same 
in all ages, and what a remarkable propensity to idolatry, 
under every dispensation, whether Patriarchal, Jewish, or 
Christian, it has always displayed, we are led to think it 
highly probable. And yet there is no mention of it in 
the brief history of our fathers before the flood. It may, 
however, have been one of those things so generally known 
and believed, that Moses did not think it necessary to 
make particular historical mention of it. 

We are told that the wickedness of man was great in 
the earth ; that the earth was corrupt before God ; that the 
earth was filled with violence, so that it repented him that 
he had made man. Now all this might be, and yet man 
might not embrace the follies of idolatry. There are 
other passages, however, from which we may probably 
draw the conclusion that very false views of God had been 
adopted. When, in the sixth chapter of Genesis, we read 
of men and the daughters of men, and contrasted with 
them the sons of God, it may be that the former had de- 
parted from the true knowledge and worship of God, in 
theory as well as practice ; so that, after a time, by inter- 



THE PROGRESS OF CORRUPTION. 



191 



marriage the whole mass of mankind had become cor- 

O 

rupted. 

There is also a passage in the 6ame chapter which 
speaks of "every imagination of the thoughts of men's 
hearts being only evil continually." And when we run 
over some of the many passages of scripture in which 
the imaginations of men's hearts are spoken of and con- 
demned, in connexion with the abominations of idolatry, 
the probability increases in our minds that false notions 
of God were among the "evil imaginations" referred to. 

But whatever be the truth as to this, it is certain that 
man became corrupt and abominable before God. Polyg- 
amy, which our Lord says was not in the beginning, was 
soon introduced, as it was again shortly after the deluge. 
Violence, also, and the love of pleasure reigned. They 
Bat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play, although, 
through the curse, man could with difficulty get bread 
with the sweat of his brow. Concerning Noah, it was 
said, "This same shall comfort us, concerning our work 
and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which 
the Lord hath cursed." There was doubtless much pov- 
erty then, as ever since. Marriage, which has been well 
declared "best bliss of paradise which has survived the 
fall," to which the union of Christ and his church has 
been compared, came to be entered into only with a view 
to earthly pleasure and gratification. The sons of God 
cho.se them wives of the daughters of men because they 
were fair; atid giants in sin, if in nothing ejse, were the 
fruit. The earth was filled with violence. Warriors were 
the great men of the earth, and it is not wonderful that it 
should have grown into fable that they made war with 
Heaven itself; and truly the in.-ue was the destruction of 
the human race, though mountain was piled on mountain 
(Pelion on Ossa) for the assault. 

The long lives of the ancients, extending to eight or nine 



192 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



hundred, and in one instance to nearly a thousand years, 
must have contributed greatly to the increase of human 
depravity and misery. If even now, in seventy years, 
there be some evil spirits and ambitious men who can inflict 
so much misery on man, what must have been the amount 
of mischief perpetrated by one whose age must be reck- 
oned by centuries. It was in mercy, truly, that God 
abridged the term of human life, and reduced it to its pres- 
ent period. " Old age standeth not in length of years ; 
but wisdom is the grey hair to man, and unspotted life is 
old age." 

" In hoary youth Methusalems may die ; 
Ah ! how misdated on their flattering tombs ! " 

Of how many old sinners may it be said, 

" Poorer for the plenty poured— 
More wretched for the clemency of Heaven." 

But some may say, all this is but the fable of Moses. If 
so, it must have been a most cunningly devised one, being 
made to suit so many other fables in different parts of the 
world, and with whom Moses had no acquaintance what- 
ever. Let us see what some of them say. The ancient 
poets and philosophers speak of four successive ages 
through which the world passes, — the Golden, the Silver, 
the Brazen, and the Iron, — representing their characters by 
the comparative value of the four metals. The last is the 
worst, and ends in the destruction of the world by the 
deluge. But in many of the ancient writings there are 
two series of such ages, set forth by the same four metals, 
— gold, silver, brass, and iron. The facts mentioned show 
clearly that the second series commenced immediately 
after the flood, with Noah and his family — as the first did 
with Adam and his, immediately after the creation. That 
the first age, in each, was the purest ; that each successive 
period was marked by gradual deterioration, sacred and 



THE PROGRESS OF CORRUPTION". 



193 



profane history attest most clearly. As to the event ter- 
minating the first series, there is no donbt. The deluge 
was sent to purify the earth from the deep corruption 
which covered it. The human race began anew, with the 
family of Noah, and was for a time comparatively pure in 
its religion and morals. As the advent of Christ drew 
near, the Jews quoted their prophets, and the pagans their 
sibylline verses and oracles, in proof that another and 
better and more enduring golden age was at hand. Vir- 
gil especially alludes to this in an eclogue addressed to 
Pollio; but as this will be the subject of more particular 
consideration at a future time, we pass over it at present, 
and confine our remarks to the fact that ancient tradition 
speaks of a deterioration from time to time in the char- 
acter of the antediluvians, ending in the flood. 

Sometimes the ancients confound together the two series 
of ages, those before and those after the flood, as they 
do indeed (according to their doctrine of a succession of 
worlds) Creation and the Deluge, Adam and his children 
with Noah and his. We only state the general result of 
the researches of such men as Sir William Jones and others, 
in saying that they abound with references to the com- 
parative character and condition of the different ages. 
The first, as we have said, was that of paradise itself, when 
all things abounded spontaneously, when men were called 
" the supreme and happy inhabitants of the earth." Then 
came a time when they were called the " moderately happy" 
inhabitants of the earth ; and then a time when the " least 
happy " inhabitants of the earth lived. Then came the 
iron a<re, — the a<;e of war and lust and violence and ra- 
pine ; of heroes and giants, of which Ovid says, 

" Vivitur ex rapto I Non hospcs ab hospitc tutus, 
Noli surer a <reiier<> ; fkitnuii <|uo.|ii<' - rati i ran <-t, 
Victa jacct pietas." 
13 



194 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



As to the long lives of the ancients, which contributed 
to this corruption, let us see what tradition says. Jose- 
phus, the Jewish historian, a man of great learning and 
study, declares that all who had written on the subject of 
antiquity, whether Greeks or barbarians, agreed with him 
that the ancients (those before the flood) lived a thousand 
years. Of course he used around number. He mentions 
the names of Berosus, Manetho, and nine other ancient 
authors as authority. Hesiod, the Grecian poet, coeval 
with Homer, says, that in the silver age, — that immedi- 
ately succeeding the golden age, — at the end of a century 
men were infants. He of course did not mean infants in 
strength either of body or mind, but only as by compari- 
son with their whole term of life. 

The Chinese have indeed some wonderful accounts of 
the longevity of their forefathers, saying that they lived 
eight or ten thousand years. But we know how prone to 
exaggeration the Chinese are in all their chronological 
calculations, making estimates of eclipses of the sun and 
moon backwards, and thus endeavoring to establish the 
age of their nation to be thousands of years before that of 
any other upon earth. Or it may be that theirs were 
lunar years, as some would have those of Moses to be. 
That it was a most ancient tradition among them that 
men's lives were much shortened, is proved by an historical 
record. The emperor, Hoang-Ti, at a time after the deluge 
when men's lives were shortened to three hundred years, 
proposed an inquiry in a medical book of which he was 
the author, — " Whence it happened that the lives of their 
forefathers were so long, compared with the lives of the 
present generation." Certain it is that the life of man 
began to shorten from the deluge ; those born before it 
living longer than any born after it, and those born imme- 
diately after it longer than those at a later period. All 
history testifies to this. Some attempt to evade the scrip- 



THE PROGRESS OF CORRUPTION. 



195 



tural account by declaring that Moses meant months or 
lunar years, instead of one common year of twelve months, 
thus reducing the Mosaic account to one-twelfth of what 
we understand by it. The folly of this will appear by con- 
sidering that the antediluvians would have had children 
when mere children themselves, and thus would have 
fallen short of many old men in our own time. Methuse- 
lah would have been only eighty years old at his death. 
Between the creation and the deluge there would have 
been only one hundred and thirty years, and only some 
few hundred people alive on the earth when God sent the 
waters of the deluge. Abraham, — who, according to Moses, 
died at a good old age, — at one hundred and seventy-five 
— would have been only eight years old when Isaac was 
born, and some of the patriarchs only about five years old. 
Some, unable to deny the fact of the longevity of the ante- 
diluvians nor disposed so to do, are yet anxious to find out 
some other cause than God's will and decree, and think 
that some changes took place in the position of the earth 
towards the sun at the deluge, which interfered with the 
former equability of the seasons and the healthiness of the 
atmosphere ; but we have no account of this. Others 
think that the material which composed the human frame 
was better before than after the deluge. Had we not bet- 
ter resolve it all into the will of God, who had made trial 
of long life to man and found that he abused it, and there- 
fore made his days to be fewer? 

We are also told that there were giants in the earth in 
those days, the same who are supposed to be mighty men 
— men of renown. These few are all the words of Moses 
concerning these men. Other giants are mentioned in 
other places of scripture. We read, in Deuteronomy ii.,of 
a people called Anakims, — great ami large men, -which 
were called giant:., (n the time of M only Ojr, the 
king of Bashan, remained of the giants, and he was killed 



196 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



in the time of Joshua. In the days of David, we read of 
Goliath. The bedstead of Og was of enormous dimensions, 
as was the spear of Goliath. But the bedsteads of kings 
and warriors were made for ostentation; and the weaver's 
beam, to which Goliath's spear was compared, may not 
have been so large as some suppose. Still they were huge, 
gigantic men, and that there have been on earth men of 
immense stature cannot be denied.* 

There are occasionally to be seen, even now, men who 
are two feet higher than common men ; so are there to be 
seen dwarfs as much below the ordinary stature of men, 
— and a few such will make much noise in the world. In 
the hands of the poets, — Homer, Hesiod, and Virgil, — it is 
not wonderful that they should be exaggerated as to num- 
bers and might, as the feats of Tom Thumb and Jack the 
Giant-Killer in our days. Certain it is, that in the an- 
cient writers horrid descriptions are given of these men 
as pests to humanity, and as by their blasphemy and 
wickedness bringing down the judgment of the deluge 
upon the earth. The poets, in their flights, make them 
engage in a regular war with heaven, piling mountain on 
mountain, Pelion on Ossa, and hurling burning rocks 
against the sky, — but the scriptures are guilty of no such 
exaggeration ; they give you the true foundation of all 
these fables. 

Lucian, of whom it is said that " he spared neither 
gods nor men," has given us an account that comes nearer 
to the real truth : " They were contentious, and did many 
unrighteous things ; they neither kept their oaths, nor 

* Whoever wishes to see proofs of this fact let him visit the palace of Ver- 
sailles, in France, and see the huge bedstead in which Louis XIV. slept and died. 
One would suppose it was made for a giant. Let him visit the Horse Armory in 
the Tower of London, and see the spears and other armor of the kings of Eng- 
land down to Charles I., and he will be the less surprised at what we read of the 
armor of the ancients. 



THE PROGRESS OF CORRUPTION. 



197 



were hospitable to strangers ; for 'which reason this great 
misfortune came upon them." On this and every other 
subject which will properly admit of it, we must make 
due allowance for the figurative language and the license 
of poetry. Thus, when the spies who were sent into the 
holy land returned and said that the men whom they 
saw were so large that they were but as the grasshoppers 
before them, we are not to understand this literally and 
strictly ; moreover, they were frightened not a little, and 
magnified their enemies. As to the language of the poets, 
we must remember how large a use of fiction our own 
Milton and Cowley have indulged in, in their great and 
6acred poems. 

" Pictoribus atque poetis, quidlibet audendi, 
Semper fuit sequa potestas." 

The daring wickedness of these giants in sin as well as 
in size, has given rise to poems in ancient days called the 
u Wars of the Titans," in which they are represented as 
actually assaulting heaven as we assault a stronghold upon 
earth ; but there are circumstances in the war which have 
led to differences of opinion as to time and place of the 
same. Some think it to be the rebellion of the wicked 
antediluvians, which led to their overthrow by the deluge ; 
others, that it was the rebellion of the builders of Babel, 
which ended in the confusion of language and their dis- 
persion through the earth. In either case we have the 
testimony of pagan poets to two most important events 
in the Mosaic history. 

We have only to add to this statement of the progress 
of corruption in the antediluvians, that God showed his 
long-suffering towards them by causing Noah to warn 
them for 120 years of the approaching wrath. This 
proving vain, the ark was prepared before their eyes, 
and, doubtless, with due explanation of its object. Of 
this there are numerous and striking traditions. 



CHAPTEE XIII. 



ON THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF IDOLATRY. 

If, at the first formation of man, God revealed himself 
as his Creator, and taught him how to worship and serve 
that Creator, bestowing knowledge and holiness on him, 
as both the Old and the New Testament declare; if, 
after the fall, God revealed to man his purpose of redemp- 
tion through one born of a woman, but equal to the task 
of restoration, and appointed sacrifices to himself prepar- 
atory to and typical of the great redemption ; then any 
deviation from that appointment, any acknowledgment 
or worship of any being or object save him, must have 
been a daring violation of duty and a renewal of the 
disobedience of our first parents, though in a different 
form. 

Seeing that God held such familiar intercourse with 
men in their own form, in the garden, and, as is most 
probable, in occasional intercourse afterwards, it must 
have been daring impiety to be looking out for some 
other god or gods to whom they might offer worship ; 
as it was with the Israelites, when, during the brief ab- 
sence of Moses on the mount, they wished for some other 
god. How or where the thought of some other god 
originated is hidden from us. 

" Causa latet, vis est notissima." 

Doubtless he who is called the father of lies, who may 
assume the garb of an angel of light, and who did in the 



PROGRESS OF IDOLATRY. 



199 



form of a subtle serpent deceive our first parents in para- 
dise, had much to do with it. His first suggestion might 
have been plausible ; his first approaches gentle and 
gradual. He may have perverted sacred truths, as when 
he dared to tempt our Saviour in the wilderness, inviting 
him to fall down and worship him. He may have begun 
his work of mischief by perverting the blessed ordinance 
of sacrifice, which God had appointed to direct the faith 
and hope of men to a Saviour, just as he now perverts 
the great Christian feast — the Lord's Supper — into an 
idolatrous worship. Whether idolatry or polytheism ex- 
isted before the flood is nowhere positively stated in the 
brief narrative of Moses, although there is such a clear 
statement of the deep corruption of man, and the deser- 
tion of the human race by the Holy Spirit, so that the 
waters of the flood were required for its cleansing, or 
rather its extirpation. But, as it is written that " all the 
imaginations of men's thoughts were only evil, and that 
continually," and as so much evil has ever been connected 
with idolatry, and idolatry commenced so soon after the 
deluge, perhaps within onu hundred years, and spread so 
rapidly, it has I. ecu thought that it was only the renewal 
of antediluvian corruption which had been suppressed 
for a time by the angry judgments of God, and the seeds 
of which had been lurking in the hearts of some of the 
sons of Noah, especially in that of Ham. At any rate, if 
it did exist before the flood, its nature must have been 
known to Xoah and his family. 

A very early idolatry after the flood, according to his- 
tory, was the worship of the sun in the heavens, and soon 
after that of the other heavenly bodies. Hence it has 
been thought probable that it was borrowed from the 
antediluvians, and did not grow up so suddenly without 
any help from tradition and example. 

The worship of the sun was at an early period cstab- 



200 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



lislied in Chaldea, beyond the Euphrates, where Terah 
and Abraham once sojourned, and who, for a time per- 
haps, partook somewhat of its idolatry. Here was the 
great temple of Belus, or the sun. Sanehoniathon, the 
Chaldean historian, or whoever wrote the work, gives the 
following account of its first establishment : " In the 
second generation of men, during a great drought, Genus 
and Genia (supposed by Bishop Cumberland to be Cam 
and Caina) stretched forth their hands to heaven, in 
adoration of the sun, for they supposed him to be Beel 
Jamin, or the Lord of the heavens. Afterwards, in the 
fifth generation, two pillars were consecrated to the ele- 
ments of fire and wind. And at length, when the authors 
of this idolatry were dead, similar pillars with trunks of 
trees were dedicated to them, and their memory was pre- 
served by anniversary feasts." Maimonides, the Jew, 
seems to favor the same idea in the following passage : 
" In the days of Enos, the son of Seth, men fell into 
grievous errors, and even Enos himself partook of their 
infatuation." Their language was, that " Since God had 
placed on high the heavenly bodies and used them as his 
ministers, it was evidently his will that they should re- 
ceive from men the same veneration as the servants of 
a great prince justly claim from the subject multitude." 

Impressed with this notion they began to build temples 
to the stars, to sacrifice to them and to worship them, in 
the vain expectation that they should please the Creator 
of all things. At first, indeed, they did not suppose the 
stars to be the only deities, but adored, in conjunction 
with them, the Lord God Omnipotent. In process of time, 
however, that great and venerable name was totally for- 
gotten, and the whole human race retained no other re- 
ligion than the worship of the hosts of heaven.* 

* Mr. Faber says that Maimonides has rightly understood the words in the 



PROGRESS OF IDOLATRY. 



201 



Sanchoniathon, who is quoted as affirming that " The 
first worship before the flood was of the heavenly bodies," 
or the elements of fire and wind, does also say that after 
the flood "The first deified mortal was Koah, or Chryson, 
and that the several members of his family after their 
death were raised to the rank of gods, in connection with 
the heavenly bodies " — thus »making the worship of he- 
roes or celebrated persons follow after and mingle with 
the hosts of heaven. 

This species of idolatry soon enlarged itself into the 
deification and worship of everything in nature which 
had life and power, and could exert any influence over 
other things, especially generative and creative power. 
The sun, moon, and stars ; the wind, fire, trees, vegetables ; 
beasts of the field, fowls of the air, — all had some energies 
and influence, especially the power of propagating their 
kind. They became gods to men, as having some of the 
attributes of the Creator, and thus the doctrine of pan- 
theism, which exists to this day, was introduced. God 
was in all things, and all things were a part of God — God 
was the world, and the world M as God. 

The idea of a self-existent, independent, and eternal God, 
separate from nature, and the Creator of matter and all 
things, was lost from among men. Though they professed 
to worehip the Creator together with the things created, 
they worshipped the mature as being visible and near 
them more than the Creator, and thus robbed him of his 
glory. Bach is tin account that some give of the rise and 
progress of idolatry in the world.'- 

But there are some who prefer a different way of 

twenty-sixth verse of the fourth chapter of Genesis — " Then began men to call 
upon the name of the Lord ;" he soys it should be rendered, " Then there wan 
pollution in calling upon the name of the Lord," or thut men called on the 
nami- of the Lord in a corrupt or npostutical manner, which Muunonides ren- 
ders " men fell into grievous errors." 
* See Rawlinson. 



202 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



accounting for its first beginning, although agreeing that 
after reaching the heavenly bodies its progress through 
universal nature is rightly traced, until pantheism and 
materialism became prevalent. They think that it began 
with some in the human form, and then ascended to the 
heavenly bodies. The great and good Sir Isaac Newton, 
without discussing the question of its antediluvian exist- 
ence, ascribes its origin among the postdiluvians to the 
worship of heroes and kings. " Idolatry," he says, " be- 
gan in Chaldea and Egypt ; for the countries upon the 
Tigris and Nile, being exceedingly fertile, were first fre- 
quented, grew first into kingdoms, and therefore began 
to adore their dead kings and queens." But Mr. Faber, 
with some other learned mythologists, in tracing the won- 
derful connection and resemblance between the facts and 
truths recorded by Moses, in his brief but most pregnant 
history of man before the flood, thinks that he perceives 
its origin and much of its progress in the imitations and 
perversions of God, as appearing in the human form in 
paradise and elsewhere, until his incarnation in the per- 
son of Christ. There is something very interestin g in this 
theory, and well calculated to secure our partiality and 
our favor. There is something unnatural in the supposi- 
tion that man should in one bold leap have rushed into 
idolatry at once by a flight into the heavenly bodies. All 
the histories of man's errors and vices favor the idea of a 
gradual corruption and perversion. 

" Nemo fuit unquam repente turpissimus." 

The corruption of Christianity itself was by little and 
little, until it became guilty of abominable idolatry, and 
thus was so changed as to be " another gospel." The wor- 
ship of the true God, before and after the flood, was doubt- 
less the foundation of the false worship. " The devil (said 



PROGRESS OF IDOLATRY. 



203 



one of the fathers) would never have built a chapel for 
himself in any place, except that one to the true God had 
first stood there." There is reason to believe, as we have 
before said, that the error in the sacrifice of Cain was the 
leaving out of his system the doctrine of the atonement 
by omitting the animal sacrifice, and only offering up the 
fruits of the earth. Thus did tnitarianism arise and spread, 
by omitting the atonement made by the second person of 
the Trinity, and speaking only the praises of God the 
Father for all his other works. Let us here see the argu- 
ment in favor of hero-worship being the first step in idol- 
atry. It is written in the Book of Genesis, chap, iii., verses 
6 and 8, that after the transgression of our first parents, 
when they had discovered their nakedness and were 
ashamed of themselves, " they heard the Voice of the 
Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, 
and that they hid themselves from his presence among the 
trees of the garden." Here was " a voice heard," and 
the presence of some one walking in the garden fled from. 
It must have been some one who could be seen and heard, 
— somewhat like themselves. All that follows favors this 
idea. The learned tell us that " the Voice of the Lord," 
as applied to God in Genesis, answers to the words of St. 
John in the opening of hi^ gospel : " In the beginning was 
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was 
God." "All things were made by him," etc. Now we 
are told by the apostle, "That no man hath seen God at 
any time ; but the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom 
of the Father, he hath declared him unto us." In him, 
though in the human form, " dwelt all the fulness of the 
Godhead bodily." I5y what he was and did, he declared 
the Father to us as far as we could know him. There first 
it is that he is called the Word or the Voice of the 
Lord, whereby he speaks and declares himself to men. 
The Jewish rabbis thus render the passage in Genesis. 



204 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



They make it," The Word of the Lord walking in the gar- 
den," instead of " the "Voice of the Lord." They consid- 
ered it not merely as a sound, but as a person, — a divine 
person, — the same who was one day to appear as the Mes- 
siah. Many passages of scripture are adduced to show 
that this was only the first of those manifestations of God 
in the form of man, who was to be the Redeemer of the 
world. Angels are often spoken of as being messengers 
of God, — ministering spirits to men ; but when God him- 
self visits earth, it is by " the angel of his presence," " the 
messenger of the covenant." As such, it is believed he 
held intercourse with Adam, with Koah, with Moses, and 
others. As such, he dwelt between the cherubim over 
the ark of the covenant, and guided the journey of the 
people of Israel, and spake to Moses and Aaron. It is also 
believed by some that the cherubim that guarded the 
garden of Eden were attended by " the presence of the 
Lord," which is sometimes spoken of, and was an object 
of worship, though Eden was a forbidden place as was 
the " Holy of Holies." If God did in some perceptible 
human form speak to men, we know not how often ; if 
sacrifices were offered to him as to- the Seed of the wo- 
man who was to bruise the serpent's head and deliver 
man ; if one to be born of a woman was to be so great, 
and such a benefactor to man ; if, as all agree, this expec- 
tation was not confined to our first mother, but continued 
even to the time of our Lord ; if Eve herself thus regarded 
her first-born, but was mistaken, — how probable that 
others may have been mistaken, and that some of the most 
remarkable among men may have been regarded as having 
the divinity within them — even as being the promised Seed. 
Let it be once established that God had appeared in the 
human form in paradise, and in that form afterwards had 
intercourse with men, and does it not seem most probable 
that some of the great and good men might become the 



PROGRESS OF IDOLATRY. 



205 



objects of the first veneration and worship, rather than 
the distant heavenly bodies, or the elements, or any other 
creatures of God ? Who among them all has so much 
wisdom, so much knowledge, so much power, and is so 
dreaded by the beasts of the field ? as it is written, " The 
fear of him and the dread of him shall be upon them." 
And now, if it be admitted that man is the most power- 
ful of all beings upon earth, most to be loved and feared ; 
and if it be asked which of all the ancients would be the 
most likely to become the object of undue veneration, 
can there be any doubt as to the answer ? Must not the 
first of the human race, made at once in a state of matu- 
rity by God himself, and having so many of the attributes 
of God in a measure, — one so favored, the inhabitant of 
Eden, the father of the whole human race, having power 
to propagate his kind, millions proceeding from him, 
— be the very person ? Who could compare with him ? 
So as to the mother of all, 60 miraculously formed, so per- 
fect, — who of all the daughters of earth so likely to be 
adored I ilow probable that the first-born of them — 
Gain, Abel, and Seth — should be raised to the rank of gods ! 
And as to Enoch, translated " without tasting death," 
who could withhold veneration from him i And then, 
when the human race became corrupt, let us think of 
Noah, a great prince, so holy a preacher of righteousness, 
with whom (iod conversed ; one so wonderfully saved in a 
mighty ship, holding more than was ever stowed away in 
any vessel which rode upon the waters — the second lather 
of the human race — afterwards regarded as Adam renewed 
and reappearing by transmigration : — and hi> sons, too, 
the fathers of mighty nations, — who, we ask, so likely to 
be adored on earth, to be translated to the heavenly 
bodies $ Let us not, however, reason or conjecture, but 
impure for tacts. It' history shows that this was the case, 
surely we must assent. It is admitted by all historians 



206 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



and mythologists that the most ancient and leading doe- 
trine of the pagan world, except that of the Numen,— " the 
first great cause least understood" — was, that the great 
deities were the same the world over, though called by 
different names according to the diversity of tongues, 
and with some modifications of character. Let us take 
the account given by Homer and Hesiod, the great class- 
ifiers of the gods. Old Saturn, or Chronus, was the 
same male divinity ; Rhea, or Themis, or the Earth, the 
same female divinity, with different names, all over the 
world. The three deities most distinguished after the 
flood were Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto. Sir William 
Jones has established the identity of these deities of Eu- 
rope, Asia, and Africa, with the first fathers of the human 
race, in an able article in his "Asiatic Researches." Many 
other learned men have done the same. 

If the worship of heroes and great men, and sacrifices 
to them, be a perversion of the worship of the true God 
in the human form, then we may understand and accept 
the language of one of the fathers, that " Paganism was, 
in the beginning, rather a heresy from the patriarchal 
church, than a new system." 

Mr. Faber remarks, that ' : Mankind were not so idioti- 
cal as to desert gratuitously the worship of Jehovah, and 
in his place to adore their defunct ancestors ; but they 
were taught to believe that in venerating certain eminent 
and remarkable characters, they in reality worshipped the 
successive incarnate manifestations of that divine Word 
who was acknowledged on all hands to be Jehovah him- 
self." 

In proof of the deification of heroes, the fathers, — St. 
Augustine and others, — quote the celebrated letter of Alex- 
ander the Great, when in Egypt. After conversing with 
the chief priest in Egypt, he writes to his mother, as a 
great secret revealed to him, that the priest assured him, 



PROGRESS OF IDOLATRY. 



207 



that riot only the lesser but the greater gods of Egypt 
were only deceased mortals. 

Cicero also informs us that "Death conducted illustrious 
men and women to heaven, while others of the meaner 
sort were unable to extricate themselves from earth. If," 
he says, " I should search out and examine antiquity, it 
would be found that those very gods who are deemed the 
Dii Majorum Gentium had their originals here below, 
and ascended from hence into heaven." 

In all the orgies of Samothrace, Crete, and Lemnos, 
says Mr. Faber, the same was declared. Hesiod informs 
us that his gods were originally men, who flourished in 
the golden age, — that is, immediately after the creation 
and the deluge. 

Sometimes the chief deity of the Gentiles is represented 
as having sailed with 6even companions in a ship during 
a great inundation ; at others he is represented as the sun 
himself, sailing in a great ship. 

So generally were ancient heroes worshipped in Egypt, 
that in only one place, Thebais, was it refused to pay a tax 
for the expenses of their worship ; yet one of their writers 
maintained that " their ancient god, called Cneph, was 
the only god, and that no mortal could be god." 

All the varied incarnations and manifestations of the 
Deity in the mythologies of the ancient nations, — and they 
are numerous, — may be reasonably traced up to the dill'er- 
ent manifestations of God, in the human form, to our an- 
cestors before and after the flood. 

The religions of the ancient nations in the East arc full 
of what are called Avaturs, or manifestations of God to 
men at successive periods. One of these represents the 
Deity as treading on the head of a serpent, while the ser- 
pent is biting his heel. 

In the Grecian mythology, Jupiter, in the form of a 
man, converses with the impious Lycaon, immediately 



208 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



before the deluge ; while, with Mercury as his companion, 
he rewards the piety of Baucis and Philemon, and destroys 
an irreligious city by the waters of a lake. This reminds 
us of what is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, when 
Paul, having cured an impotent man, the people would 
have worshipped him and his companion Barnabas, call- 
ing one Jupiter and the other Mercurius, saying, " the 
gods have come down to us in the likeness of men." 
We must not omit to mention Prometheus, the ancient 
king of so many nations, who was at once a king and a> 
god, and yet none other than Noah. 

Jupiter having determined to destroy the human race, 
none of the other gods dared interfere except Prometheus. 
He brought fire from heaven to animate the clay, and on 
this account was devoted to severe punishment. yEschi- 
lus, in one of his tragedies, represents him as bound to a 
rock on Mount Caucasus, in the most painful posture, 
where he endured the most bitter mockery, and was thus 
taunted : " Now let us see thee bestow high gifts of the 
gods on wretched mortals! Can these mortals liberate 
thee from thy present suffering?" Nor must we forget 
another most important feature in this doctrine of the in- 
carnation, viz : that the Deity, thus becoming human, is 
born of a woman, generally of a virgin. Not more clearly 
is this stated in scripture than it is seen in some of the 
pagan mythologies. 

Now let us see how the worship of heroes became con- 
nected with that of the sun, moon, and stars, etc. Sancho- 
niathon, the Phoenician historian, in speaking of postdi- 
luvian idolatry, says that Noah, or Chryson, was the first 
deified mortal, and the several members of his family, 
after their deaths, were raised to the rank of gods, in con- 
nection with the heavenly bodies. 

Among the Hindoos, the Richis, who were preserved 



PROGRESS OF IDOLATRY. 



209 



in the ark, afterwards animated the seven stars of the 
Great Bear, and their wives those of the Pleiades. 

In Chaldea it was believed that the great Father had 
made seven erratic living animals, which were the seven 
worlds or planets. 

The earliest king of Egypt was called Ilelitcs, or the 
Sun ; but the worship of the hero preceded that of the 
heavenly body into which he ascended. Thus, Julius 
Csesar was the cause of the star being worshipped, into 
which he was supposed to ascend. It was indeed the pre- 
vailing idea, among the ancient philosophers and poets, 
that the stars were inhabited, and had souls. Some of the 
Jewish rabbis believed it. Philo, the Jew, calls them de- 
vout images; incorruptible, immortal souls. Maimonides 
says they are all animated, having life, knowledge, and 
understanding. Perhaps in this way he construed a fig- 
urative passage in Job, which speaks of the "morning stars 
singing together, and all the sons of God shouting for joy." 
The adoration of the heavenly bodies has ever been the 
most plausible, and the most natural and innocent of the 
pagan idolatries ; therefore it is that the scriptures are so 
frequent and so strong in warning against being led into 
it. God calls himself " the Sun," and, in order to show his 
undivided authority, did, on certain occasions, make both 
6iin and moon to stop in their accustomed courses. Nor 
coidd they move at all but by his mighty power and at 
his bidding. So noble are all the luminaries of heaven ; 
bo probable does it seem that they are filled with inhabi- 
tants to prai.-e him that made them and who delights to 
till universal space with living beings, that even now there 
are those among Christians who, on beholding the vault of 
heaven covered with stars, say, " May not these bo some of 
the many mansions of which our Saviour speaks, and 
may not one of them be the future habitation of the re- 
deemed souls and the glorified bodies of his renewed 
14 



210 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



ones ? " And though none can establish it, who can gain- 
say it? When Enoch and Elijah were taken up into 
heaven ; when the Son of God, after visiting earth 
so often in the human form, disappeared, perhaps as 
from Mount Olivet, and soared towards heaven, how 
natural the thought that some of the heavenly bodies 
might he his habitation ; and then how easy the transition 
to the thought that when the great ones of earth died their 
souls might ascend also ! The kings and warriors of earth, 
out of ambition and vainglory ; and their flattering syco- 
phants, out of their folly and self-interest, did everything 
in their power to keep up this delusion. The former 
claimed to be descended from some god, and then declared 
their ascent to the stars after their death.* Thus did the 
evil one, who falsely promised to our first parents that 
they should be as gods if they would obey him, continue 
to carry on the work as the father of lies, and sought to 
persuade men that numbers of the human race had become' 
gods and were worthy of their worship. The falsehood 
has been perpetuated upon earth, not only among the 
heathen but in some measure among Christians, as may 

* Some notice of astrology may here be introduced. "Mythology in one age," 
says Mr. Faber, " becomes romance in the next, and finally is degraded into 
nursery tales in the third. Hence arose the fancies of judicial astrology, in 
which the stars, according to their various positions and combinations, at the 
birth of an individual, were thought subsequently to influence the whole of his 
life;" and there were those who professed to foretell all the events of a man's 
life, from observing the stars at his nativity. " The heavenly bodies, in their 
first condition, were imagined to be living creatures, possessing sensation but 
devoid of intelligence. Next, however, they became a class of living creatures, 
possessing intelligence as well as sensation." This, Mr. Faber thinks, originated 
from the impression that the hero-gods first hovered over the earth as guardians 
of their descendants ; then were translated to the stars, and animated them: 
Some have maintained that the- scriptures give countenance to this idea, as in 
the song of Deborah at the discomfiture of Sisera. — (Judges v.) " From the 
heavens they fought. The stars from their lofty places (or in their courses) 
fought against Sisera," and he was discomfited. Mr. Faber thinks that 
the prophetess, in a fine strain of irony, " is taunting the kings of Canaan with 
consulting the stars and believing that they fought with them ! " 



PROGRESS OF IDOLATRY. 



211 



be seen in the adoration of the saints and of the mother of 
our Lord. It is difficult to divest our own sacred poetry 
of the language of idolatry, as for instance in the beauti- 
ful hymn — 

" Star of the East, the horizon adorning, 
Dawn on our darkness," etc., etc. 

And in our great national song — 

"HaiL Columbia, happy land! 
Hail, ye heroes, heaven-born band ! " 

How few, in repeating and singing these lines, consider 
that they are using the language of paganism ! 

I conclude on this subject by stating a remarkable cir- 
cumstance which takes place in some of the Eastern sacri- 
fices, and which favors the idea that the origin of idolatry 
may be traced to the appearance of God himself in the 
human form, and of the sacrifice of " the Lamb slain from 
the foundation of the world." The circumstance is this: 
if the victim slain be in the human form it is first wor- 
shipped. In the "Asiatic Researches," vol. v., we have 
an account of the ceremony and the prayer. The victim 
is thus addressed : " best of men ! O most auspicious ! O 
thon who art an assemblage of all the deities, and most 
exquisite ! bestow thy protection on me, and part with thine 
organs of life, doing an act of benevolence." Thus it is 
written, "Let the sacrificer worship the victim." Brah- 
ma and all the deities are supposed to assemble in the 
victim. The sacrificer must say, " Mysterious praise be to 
this victim." Messrs. Faber, Bryant, and others adduce 
the above in favor of the view they take of this subject. 

As to the rise and progress of idolatry, when the philos- 
ophers undertook the management of religion they turned 
the persons of heroes or ancients into attributes of God or 
nature ; and wherever power or force was found, there they 



212 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



found the Deity. The poets again took the abstractions of 
the philosophers and converted them into idle tales or un- 
intelligible allegories. These two things have perplexed 
the question of the origin of idolatry, leading some to as- 
cribe it to the brains and fancies of philosophers and poets 
rather than to some early facts in the history of God's 
dealings with man, which have been perverted into fable. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



ON THE DELUGE. PART FIRST. 

According to our plan, we will first give tlie account 
of it as recorded by Moses. 

In the sixth chapter of Genesis it is written : " And 
God saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the 
earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his 
heart was only evil continually." "And it repented the 
Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved 
hi in at his heart." " But Noah found grace in the eyes of 
the Lord ;" for " Xoah was a just man, and walked with 
God." "And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh 
is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence 
through them ; and I will destroy them with the earth." 

He then bids him build an ark, or ship, after the pat- 
tern irivcii liim by tli<: Lord, into which lie and his wife, 
and his 6ons and their wives with them, must enter, 
taking with them pairs of all fowls and beasts which 
were unclean, and of the clean by sevens, and also suffi- 
cient food for all. This being done according to the 
divine command, the clouds from above opened their win- 
dows, and the fountains of the great deep were broken 
up, and the waters which came forth prevailed and cov- 
ered the carlli for one hundred and fifty days. In due 
time (iod made a wind to pass over the earth, and the 
waters were assuaged. In the seventh month the ark 
rested upon the mountains of Ararat. At the; end of one 
year and ten days Xoah and his family descended from 



214 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



the ark, with all that was in it. And he built an altar to 
the Lord, and offered sacrifices. 

Then began anew the race of man, and of the other 
animals made for his use, with a promise from God that 
he would never again thus destroy the earth. 

Of such a tremendous dispensation as this, if it did 
really occur, all must admit that the most undoubted 
proofs would be furnished, so long as the earth shall re- 
main to exhibit the effects of so tremendous a convul- 
sion, and so long as man is capable of transmitting, from 
generation to generation, any knowledge of what has hap- 
pened on earth. This surely, above all things, is that 
event of which all nations, in all ages and countries, 
must have some tradition. 

It is not our purpose to adduce the evidences which 
the geologist finds in those numerous fossil remains of 
animals and plants and trees of all kinds, and of every 
size, which are on and below the surface of the earth, and 
which some mighty flow of waters only could have placed 
there. Though we may have cause to allude to such in 
the progress of our work, yet we must leave the details 
of the argument and the specification of facts to the geolo- 
gist, only referring our readers to some of the numerous 
works of that class of defenders of our holy religion. The 
plan of our work leads us to adduce, in behalf of the 
deluge, some of those numerous corroborations of scrip- 
ture which abound in the ancient histories, poems, and 
mythological traditions. 

Before we begin with our quotations, it is proper that 
we should repeat what has already been stated, and what 
may require to be incorporated again into other state- 
ments, viz., that the deluge was not considered by many 
ancient nations as the first great catastrophe which hap- 
pened to our earth. 

The doctrine of a succession of worlds, by destruction 



ON THE DELUGE. 



215 



and reproduction, pervades many of the pagan mytholo- 
gies, especially those of the East. Fire and water are 
the elements supposed to he used by some god, or gods, 
in these destructions and reproductions. I mention this 
at once, because you will find the fact so often inter- 
mingled with the testimonies about to be introduced, and 
they will thus be the better understood. These traditions 
favor the theory of those who think that before or during 
the period of that chaos which preceded the present or- 
ganization of the earth and heavens, and the formation of 
man, and of animals for the use of man, there may have 
been revolutions in the state of the earth, and even ani- 
mals suited to those revolutions, though not such as now 
exist and have existed since man was formed. Certain 
it is, however, that Moses has given us no hint of any 
such revolutions, or such races of animals, and therefore 
we confine ourselves to his record. 

TESTIMONIES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS TO THE FACT OF A 

DELUGE. 

The great deity of the Hindoos is Brahm, who is said 
to appear at the beginning of every new world. He trip- 
licated himself into three deities, Hralima, Vishnu, and 
Siva, who are believed to he, first, Adam and his three 
sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth, the only ones named by 
Moses; and next, Noah and his three sons, Shem, Hani, 
and Japheth, the only ones mentioned, and who, as we 
shall hereafter sec, were the chief deities of the heathen 
world, except so far as they believed in one invisible 
supreme Numcn, or god. 

The Egyptians held the same opinion nsto a succession of 
worlds, in their most ancient books — tliu.se ascribed, whe- 
ther rightfully or not, to Hermes — the; doctrine is taught 
that ''nothing perishes;" that " death is only a change 
or translation of things ; " that " the Supreme Being, be- 



216 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



holding the manners of men from time to time, either washes 
away with water or consumes witli fire the malignity of the 
world, and then restores it again to its ancient form." 
Such was the account given to Solon hy an Egyptian 
priest. Origen, the learned father, gives the same ac- 
count of their system, saying, that "According to their 
speculations the world was never produced, but existed 
from all eternity." Of course, this god of the Egyptians 
was not our God who " made the heavens and the earth," 
even though he may have permitted it to be in a state of 
chaos, or without form, and void, or in some other form 
than its present one, for a certain time. This Egyptian 
god could only have been the soul or mind of the world ; 
its regulator, not its maker. 

The Chinese and Burmans hold opinions in unison with 
the foregoing;. 

The Chaldeans or Babylonians, according to their histo- 
rian, Berosus, held as follows : In the time of Zizuthrus, 
(the same with Noah,) and who like Noah was the ninth in 
descent from the first man, happened the great deluge 
whose history is thus given : " The god Chronus appeared 
to him in a vision, and gave him notice that on the fif- 
teenth clay of the month Desius, there would be a flood 
by which all mankind would be destroyed. After direct- 
ing him to write a history of the past and put it in some 
place of security, he bids him build a vessel, and take with 
him into it his friends and relations, and to trust himself 
fearlessly to the deep. The command was obeyed, and 
Zizuthrus takes with him into his vessel all kinds of ani- 
mals. The vessel was five stadia in length, and two in 
breadth. After the flood had covered the earth and begun 
to abate, he sent forth some birds, who came back twice, 
having their feet tinged with mud ; but sending them a 
third time, they returned no more. He now opened the 
vessel, and found that it was driven to the side of a moun- 



ON THE DELUGE. 



217 



tain. Descending from it with his family, lie first paid 
adoration to the earth, and then budded an altar and offered 
sacrifices to the gods. The remainder of his friends, after 
waiting for some time in the ship, came out in search of 
them but could not find them ; but the}' heard the voice of 
Zizuthrus in the air, who admonished them to pay due 
regard to the gods, saying that he, his wife, children, and 
pilot had all been exalted to the rank of gods. 1 ' Derosus 
remarks that the remains of the vessel were to be seen in 
his time, on one of the mountains of Armenia, and that 
people were wont to scrape the bitumen with which it 
had been coated, to use as charms. Whatever may be 
thought of this last affirmation, who will deny the proba- 
bility that the remains of such a vessel, which for size and 
excellency has perhaps never been surpassed if equalled, 
should for centuries be found on that high and healthy 
mountain-top ? 

THE GRECIAN AND SYRIAN ACCOUNT, AS GITEN BY LUCIAN. 

" Tliis generation of men was not the first, for all of them 
perished ; but these are from a second race, which all in- 
creased from a single person, named Deucalion, to its pres- 
ent multitude." Concerning these men, they relate, that 
being of a ferocious and violent temper, they were guilty 
of every sort of lawlessness ; wherefore a great calamity 
befell them. Tin; earth suddenly poured forth a large body 
of water; heavy torrents of rain descended; the rivers 
overflowed their banks; the sea rose above its ordinary 
level, until the whole world was inundated, and all that 
were in it perished. In the midst of the general destruc- 
tion, Deucalion alone was left to another generation on 
account of Ids extraordinary wisdom and piety. His pres- 
ervation wai thus effected. He caused his sons ami their 
wives to enter into a large ark which he had provided, and 
after wards went into it himself; but while he was embark- 



218 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



ing, swine and horses and lions and serpents and all other 
animals came to him in pairs. These he took in with him, 
and they injured him not ; but on the contrary, the great- 
est harmony subsisted between them, through the influ- 
ence of the Deity. Thus they sailed together in one ark, 
as long as the waters prevailed. The Syrians (says Lucian) 
add to this a tradition of the waters being swallowed up 
by a large chasm in their country, and say that Deucalion 
himself had a temple built on it, and some religious cere- 
monies established annually to commemorate their deliv- 
erance. Nothing is here said about the dove, but Plutarch 
informs us that mythologists declare that Deucalion sent a 
dove out of the ark, which when it returned to him showed 
that the storm was not abated ; but when he saw it no 
more, he concluded that the sky was become serene 
again. 

THE HINDOO TESTIMONY. 

The learned Sir William Jones translated a long tradi- 
tion from one of the ancient books of India, in which, not- 
withstanding all the oriental romance and figure, the main 
facts of the Mosaic account of the deluge are substantiated. 

Brahma, one of the three sons of Brahm, is represented 
as lying in a profound sleep for a whole night, — that is, a 
year, according to the Hindoo reckoning, during which 
the earth was destroyed by a deluge. 

The traditions of the Druids in Europe, who derived 
their religion from the East, resembles the Hindoo tradi- 
tion. "The profligacy of mankind had provoked the 
Supreme to send a pestilential wind upon the earth. A 
pure poison descended, and every blast was death. At 
this time the patriarch, distinguished for his integrity, 
was shut up with seven select companions in a floating 
island, or enclosure, with a strong door. Here the just 
ones were safe from injury. Presently a tempest of fire 



ON THE DELUGE. 



219 



arose, which split the earth asunder to the great deep. 
The lake Illion burst its bounds. The waves of the sea 
lifted themselves on high round the borders of Britain ; 
the rain poured down from heaven, and the waters cover- 
ed the earth ; but that water was intended as a lustration 
to purify the polluted globe, to render it meet for the re- 
newal of life, to wash away the contagion of its former 
inhabitants into the chasms of the abyss. The flood, which 
swept away from the earth the expiring remains of the 
patriarch's contemporaries, raised his vessel or enclosure 
on high from the ground, bore it safe upon the summit of 
the waves, and proved to him and his associates the 
water of life and renovation." 

Such, according to Davies and Faber, are the Druidical 
traditions concerning the deluge. 

THE CHINESE TRADITIONS OF THE DELUGE. 

" I may assure you," says Sir William Jones, in one of 
his addresses to the Asiatic Society, " that the Chinese, 
like the Hindoos, believe tins earth to have been wholly 
covered with water, which, in works of undisputed author- 
ity, they describe as flowing abundantly, then subdivid- 
ing, and separating the higher from the lower age of 
mankind ; and that the division of time, from which their 
poetical history begins, just preceded the appearance of 
Fold on the mountains of China." There can be no 
doubt that Fohi was none other than Noah, Deucalion, 
ZLzuthius, and others, who by different names represented 
the patriarch of the deluge. 

AMERICAN TRADITIONS OF THE FLOOD. 

" At the time of the conquest of America," Bays Mr. 
Faber, quoting from Howard, Purchas, and Ilcicra, " the 
inhabitants of Michoaca, Thascala, and Achajagua .-till 



220 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



preserved a tradition that the world was once overwhelm- 
ed with water in consequence of the prevailing wicked- 
ness of the age. The Michoacans believed that a priest 
called Tespi was preserved, along with his wife and chil- 
dren, in a great box of wood, in which also he had col- 
lected a variety of animals, and excellent seed of all kinds. 
After the waters had retreated, be sent out a bird called 
aura, which did not return ; he then sent out several 
others which did not return. Last of all he sent out a 
bird much smaller than the others, which the natives 
esteemed most. This soon returned again, with a branch 
of a tree in its mouth." 

The Peruvians, we are informed by Gomara, believed 
in a similar manner that it once rained so violently as to 
inundate all the lower parts of the country, in consequence 
of which a universal destruction of the human race took 
place, a few persons excepted, who escaped in caves situ- 
ated on the tops of the mountains. In place of doves 
they substituted dogs, which they sent out to explore the 
country. They also reckoned the number of persons saved 
as seven. Such is the case with a number of the ancient 
traditions, for a reason hereafter to be mentioned. The 
Peruvian seven are doubtless the same with the seven 
Cabiri, the seven Titans, the seven Hindoo Kishis, the 
seven Arkite, companions of the British Arthur. 

The Brazilians also had their account of a general flood. 
When that event took place, all mankind perished, one 
person only and his sister excepted, who escaped on a 
janipater. From this pair the Brazilians deduce their 
origin. Lerius informs us that he was present at one of 
their assemblies, where in a solemn chorus they chanted 
a kind of requiem to their ancestors. In the course of 
the song they did not fail to notice the catastrophe of the 
deluge, in which the whole world perished except some 
of their progenitors, who escaped by climbing big trees. 



OX THE DELUGE. 



221 



The inhabitants of Cuba have very special traditions 
concerning it. They say, "An old man, fearing the deluge, 
built a great ship, and went into it with his family and 
an abundance of animals. After he had been shut up 
many days he sent out a crow, which did not return, but 
stayed to feed on dead bodies ; at length, however, it 
came back with a green branch in its mouth." 

They related, moreover, that this ancient man lay un- 
covered in conserpience of intoxication, and that one of 
his sons scoffed at him while in that state ; but the others 
spread their garments over him. They added, that they 
themselves were descended from the former son, hence 
they had no garments to cover their nakedness ; and they 
argued that the Spaniards had sprung from another son, 
that is, from one of those who had spread their garments 
over their father, because they had both clothes and 
horses. 

Ilerera asserts that this narrative was communicated by 
a Cuban, more than seventy years of age, to Gabriel de 
Cabrera, who in a quarrel had called him a dog : AVhere- 
fore he asked, " Dost thou abuse me, since we are breth- 
ren? Do we not spring from the two sons of him who built 
the great ship to save himself from the waters ? " Numer- 
ous are the other testimonies to the same effect, from the 
same and different nations, but the above ought surely to 
suffice to sati.-ty all who are not steeled against all evi- 
dence in favor of a deluge. 

Some of its opponents object that these traditions relate 
only to some partial overflow of water which has affected 
certain localities of the earth, and whose occurrence is 
not denied. Others object to the theory of a general or 
universal deluge, that many of the fossils and skeletons 
and coal mines which once were considered proofs of a 
deluge, arc now ascribed to revolutions and convulsions 
of a much earlier date than the deluge, and are believed 



222 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



to be the remains of animals and forests which, existed 
before the period of Adam's formation and the establish- 
ment of the earth in its present condition. Others main- 
tain that the Mosaic account is fully established without 
supposing that the whole of our globe was covered by the 
flood ; that it is sufficient to suppose that the flood de- 
stroyed the whole human race, with the exception of 
!Noah and his family ; that it is not certainly known 
whether the whole earth was covered with inhabitants 
before the flood ; whether the continent of America, or 
large portions of it, may not have been brought to the 
surface by the operation of the flood, and some parts of 
the other hemisphere have been destitute of inhabitants. 
They maintain that perhaps only large portions of Eu- 
rope, Asia, and Africa were settled before the flood, and 
that the deluge may only have covered these continents, 
or large portions of the same, destroying all the men and 
other animals except those in the ark. However we may 
prefer the more literal understanding of the language of 
Moses, and the doctrine of the more universal deluge, we 
must not condemn as unbelievers and unsound those who 
adopt a more restricted view of the subject. The Rev. 
Mr. Harcourt, son of the late Archbishop of York, who 
has written two learned octavos on the deluge, advocates 
the most literal understanding of the language of scrip- 
ture as to its universality; and yet, he wishes to be under- 
stood as not denying that there are things which geologists 
have discovered in the bosom of the earth, which, though 
once ascribed to the deluge, must be ascribed to a pre- 
vious era and dispensation, though there are a sufficient 
number of phenomena yet belonging to the surface and 
the first strata beneath, which can only be ascribed to the 
destruction by the deluge. Mr. Faber, also, though hold- 
ing decided views as to a general deluge according to the 
literal Mosaic record, has, in his great work on the "Pa- 



OX THE DELUGE. 



223 



gan Mythology," presented those traditions and facts in 
relation to partial deluges which have encouraged the 
supposition that the Mosaic record related to the most ex- 
tensive of them, and to one in which God's anger at the 
sins of men was signally displayed, even to the total de- 
struction of the antediluvian race, except Noah and his 
family. I conclude the present chapter hy an account of 
6ome of these traditions. 

From an examination of these documents, and the locali- 
ties themselves, Mr. Faber thinks it not impossible that 
the Enxine sea, once a lake, may have burst its bounds, 
and poured its redundant waters through the cleft of the 
Bosphoros; nor impossible that the Mediterranean sea 
may, in a similar manner, perhaps in the way of cause 
and effect, have broken for itself a passage into the ocean, 
thus discharging the streams which it had previously re- 
ceived from the Enxine. 

plato's account of the island of atlaxtis. 

According to Plato, when Solon was in Egypt a learned 
priest of the country informed him that there was once, 
at the entrance of the main ocean, beyond the Pillars of 
Hercules (Gibraltar), an island larger than all Asia and 
Africa, of which traditions very like those relating to 
Noah and the flood existed ; but that the Mediterranean 
sea, at that time a large lake without any inlet into the 
ocean, was swelled above its usual level by an extraordi- 
nary influx of the great rivers which disembogue themselves 
into it. The weight of the waters, assisted by an earth- 
quake, bnr.-f through the isthmus which then- connected 
Europe and Africa, and by their sudden escape over- 
whelmed extensive tracts of land*. Mr. Faber rather 
gives a mythological interpretation of this. The destruc- 
tion of cities and the submerging of islands were some- 



22-1 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



times regarded as deluges, and perhaps identified with the 
great deluge. That islands have sunk in the ocean, is 
matter of history which is not questioned. As to the de- 
struction of cities, it is sufficient to mention Sodom and 
Gomorrah j. nearly twenty miles apart, (one at the head, 
the other at the foot of the Dead Sea,) which were de- 
stroyed by fire and sunk in a lake. It is not wonderful 
that as Abraham was the tenth from Noah, and ISToah was 
the tenth from Adam, that Lot and his daughters should 
have feared another deluge, one of fire mingled with 
water. It is not wonderful that it should afterwards have 
been considered a deluge. Very numerous are the tradi- 
tions of floods, — -as in that of Samothrace, and those in 
Cashmere, a country very liable to overflowings, — which 
have been identified with the great flood of Noah. "We 
are bold to affirm that not only scripture, but the traditions 
of the ancients, distinguish the latter from all others, so as 
to make it one of the most striking proofs of the truth of 
the sacred narrative* 



CHAPTER XV. 



OS THE DELUGE. PART SECOND. COMMEMORATIONS AND SYM- 
BOLS OF THE DELUGE, THE ARK, AND MOUNT ARARAT. 

We repeat the remark, that if such an overflowing of 
the earth as that recorded by Moses, with its most proba- 
ble effects on and beneath the surface, did occur, suffi- 
cient evidences of it must be found in and upon the earth 
itself; while the traditions of nations would in all time 
bear witness to it. 

We further remark, that so memorable an event, be- 
yond any other whatever, would also be inscribed on the 
memory of the human race by monuments and usages 
and stated celebrations, such as man has been ever prone 
to adopt in regard to all things in which he was deep- 
ly interested, but which were likely to be forgotten; 
wherefore, we find the ancient world tilled with sacred 
places, mountain-, caverns, temples, celebrations, referring 
to t ! i i event, while historians assure us of their design. 

l!ut let us, according to our plan, first see what the 
most ancient of all hooks, the Bible, has to say on this 
branch of the subject. We have shown, in a former 
chapter, the L'reat probability that the garden of Eden 
and Mount Ararat, if not identical as to locality, were 
very near to each other in the mountains of Armenia, 
where the great rivers mentioned by Moses took their 
rise. 

IS 



226 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



According to some traditions, the ark rested on the 
side of one of those mountains, and not on the most lofty 
and craggy and inaccessible peak. At the foot or side of 
the mountain lay the garden of Eden, through which the 
river ran, afterwards dividing itself into four streams. 
That the mountain and the ark resting on it should be 
ever held in veneration, is not only probable, but, accord- 
ing to the constitution of man, and history, most certain ; 
and since the whole human race, in all ages and countries, 
could not see this mountain and ship, it is most probable 
that similar mountains and high places would remind 
them of it, and that vessels sailing on the ocean and rivers 
should be interesting objects to them, and that pictures 
and imitations of the mountain and ark should also be 
made in after time. Although we do not affirm that the 
scriptures give us the origin of the religious use of moun- 
tains, as it is altogether probable that they were thus used 
in other tribes and nations before the days of Abraham, 
when Moses first makes mention of it, yet we do affirm 
that the records of Moses furnish a divine sanction for this 
method of commemorating the use of Mount Ararat in 
receiving the ark. 

The first instance of the religious use of a mountain, as 
related by Moses, is that of E~oah on Mount Ararat, where, 
on leaving the ark. he built an altar and offered sacrifice. 
The next is that of Abraham, on a mountain between 
Bethel and Hai, where he built an altar and called upon 
the name of the Lord, and where he afterwards found his 
place of worship on returning from Egypt. The next was 
Mount Hebron, then Mount Moriah, where he went, by 
divine direction, to sacrifice his son Isaac, and which was 
called the Mount of the Lord. The next was Mount 
Gilead, where Jacob offered a sacrifice. Moses himself 
had evidence of the favor shown by God to elevated 
places in the manifestations of himself. 



ON" THE DELUGE. 



227 



In Horeb, called the [Mount of the Lord, he appeared 
unto Moses, commissioning him for his great work, 
and told him by what name to call the God who sent 
him. 

At Sinai, not far distant from Horeb, God appeared in 
the midst of clouds and fire and thunder, and spake unto 
him, and delivered the ten commandments, written with 
his own hand, and delivered sundry other statutes to 
Moses. If we pursue the history of the Jewish nation 
through the time of the judges, the prophets, and the 
kings, we shall find numerous instances in which God hon- 
ored mountains and high places by appointing them for 
sacrifices and holy observances. Especially did he choose 
Jerusalem as the place for his great temple, calling it 
Mount Zion, and bidding the people assemble there for 
his worship three times a year, and making it the per- 
manent abode of the hitherto wandering ark of the cove- 
nant. Nor did our Lord himself, while on earth, though 
declaring that God might be worshipped in every place 
if worshipped in spirit and in truth, despise the ancient 
and honored temples of nature. He chose one of them 
for the delivery of that first of sermons, the Sermon on 
the Mount. He himself loved to retire into some of the 
mountains around Jerusalem to pray ; he chose a moun- 
tain for his fierce contest with the evil one. The Mount 
of Olives was his favorite resort, and from a mountain 
did he ascend up into heaven when his work on earth 
was consummated. 

Doubthv-s some of the most, acceptable sacrifices and 
effectual fervent prayers were offered up in such places 
by the faithful, not only in Abraham's line, but in other 
lines, before the true faith and worship were lost to the lat- 
ter upon earth. Noah himself, who with some of his more 
pious de-cemlants may long have lingered near the bliss- 
ful seat of paradise, in sight of the lofty Ararat and of the 



228 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



sacred ark, may sometimes have revisited it for sacred 
prayer and sacrifices. 

However natural, however innocent this use of elevated 
places in the early ages for purposes of worship and for 
perpetuating the recollection of the deluge, this, like all 
other things, became perverted in the hands of man to 
sinful and idolatrous purposes. Some of the learned be- 
lieve that the tower of Babel, which was the similitude 
of some high mountain peak, was built either with a view 
of bidding defiance to another deluge, or for the purpose 
of worshipping the sun, moon, and stars. That these were 
worshipped afterwards on the tops of temples, mountains, 
and hills, is undeniable. 'The scriptures are full of God's 
denunciations against the high places in Israel, on which 
sacrifices to the gods of the heathen were offered. The 
pious kings and judges in Israel evinced their zeal in 
behalf of the worship of the true God by destroying the 
altars and the groves where these sacrifices were made, 
although, in some instances, they were permitted to be used 
for the pure worship of Jehovah, at any rate until the 
temple worship was established at Jerusalem, on Mount 
Zion. 

But in process of time, in various parts of the Avorld, 
not only were these and other memorials of the deluge 
used in the worship of false gods, — the deified inhabitants 
of the ark especially, — but the very memorials themselves, 
the high places and pillars and towers, were superstitiously 
regarded. The creature, instead of the Creator, was 
adored; the sign and memorial, instead of the thing it- 
self, were worshipped. 

It is affirmed by some, that every sign in the Zodiac, as 
we have it in all the almanacs of the land, has special 
reference to the deluge. It would extend the length of 
our treatise too much to enter into an explanation of all 
this. The reader may find it all in the learned work of 



OX THE DELUGE. 



229 



Mr. Har court on the deluge. "We must content ourselves 
with selecting a few out of the numerous memorials ot' the 
deluge, which are furnished by the temples of religion, 
the sacred caverns, pillars, and towers celebrated in the 
heathen world. 

The mountains of Ararat consist of two high peaks, with 
a kind of valley between, presenting the appearance of the 
head of a bull with his horns, especially when in a mood 
to lock his horns with another; or a new moon in its cres- 
cent state ; or of a ship, with its prow and stern. There- 
fore it is that these three things are so prominent in all the 
descriptions and celebrations of the deluge. The bull was 
called Taurus, because his horns referred to the residence 
of the great chieftain of the ship on one of these horns or 
peaks. Several mountains are called Tan, or Taurus, for 
the same reason. The Phoenician name for a bull and a 
ship is the same. Mount Ararat is called baris (a ship), 
by the natives, because of the ship, or ark, which rested 
on it, and whose remains were seen on it for a long time.* 

The ark was certainly, in some measure, the pattern 
after which many temples were built in after ages. The 
celebrated temple at Stonehcnge in England is circular, 

* Other mountains, it is true, lay claim to the honor of being the earthly 
paradise, unci the residence of those who were saved from the deluge. Mount 
Menu in Asia, at the head of the Ganges, in the Caucasian range of mountains, 
claims to hare been the abode of the gods. Mount Olympus, in Greece, "Eter- 
nal ,„„./',//,. ..///;/,//.,n it.i l„, ul" »■ us the favorite scat of the Grecian gods. 
I'arnassus was the haunt of the Muses. These, with others, claim the honor of 
rescuing the human race from destruction by the waves. This is not more 
wonderful than that so many localities claim to be the birthplace of Homer. 
These various claims prove that there was such a pot t us Homer, which some 
pretend to disbelieve. All these claims for the honor of being the reccptucle 
of the tflnpeat-tost ark, only establish the fact of the deluge and the ark. 
Deucalion was called "A Floater on the Seas." The Persians call Ararat "The 
Mountain of Noah"— some call it "The Mountain of the Kight." The Turks 
call it " The Heloved Mountain." Who can question the identity of Noah and 
his family with all others who, in different countries and languages, were said 
to be involved in a deluge, or saved by a mountain, or ship." 



230 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



but the sanctum is like the hull of a ship. In Ireland, 
and elsewhere, the Druids had many such temples. We 
read of a large ship-temple in Egypt, dedicated to Isis. 
The Chinese sometimes have their tombs in the form of a 
crescent or new moon, or bull's head, all much the same in 
form, and place them in high situations. Travellers have 
said that the ruins of Babel, when last seen, resemble a 
hill with a tower on the top. 

In ancient times, the Druids, in Yorkshire especially, 
selected high hills for their bonfires (good-fires) so-called, 
because fires of peace, religious exhibitions. The Per- 
sians, it is well known, used to ascend the highest moun- 
tain in order to worship and sacrifice. The summits of 
some hills in India are covered with pagodas. The an- 
cient Celts loved the mountains, as well as rivers and lakes, 
for worship. The Pelasgi consecrated the summits of high 
mountains to Jupiter, and there erected altars, for which 
reason he was called Jupiter Epacrias, " the god of high 
summits." t The Gauls had a sanctuary consecrated to Jupi- 
ter upon the highest of the Alps. There is also a remark- 
able one on that part of Mount Atlas, in Africa, which 
projects into the Atlantic, and is almost surrounded by the 
ocean. To the "Western Lybians, now called Africans, it 
was both a temple and an idol. There is also Mount Athos, 
in Macedonia, which, like Atlas, is almost surrounded by 
the sea. It has been a holy mountain from the earliest 
period to the present time, being filled with cells for the 
priests. Wonderful things are told of it, in ancient fables. 
To these we might add, Phrygian Ida, the Sicilian Eryx; 
and we might almost say that all the nations of Europe, 
Asia, and Africa had their high mountains in esteem as 
places of public worship. The infidel, Baily, admits the 
historical fact, but is unable to account for it. What is 
yet more remarkable, all of them make one of these high 
mountains the abode of the first gods, who were the fathers 



ON THE DELUGE. 



231 



of the human race, and also the place where the ark of 
the deluge rested. Man, ever prone to idolatry, has paid 
undue reverence to them all ; wherefore, God said by his 
prophets, " In vain is salvation hoped for from the hills 
and from the multitude of the mountains," 



CHAPTEE XVI. 



ON THE DELUGE. PART THIRD, 

As there are many parts of the earth where high moun- 
tains and deep caverns resembling the ark were not to 
be found, and where yet the inhabitants wished to com- 
memorate the deluge and the ark in their religious wor- 
ship, artificial imitations of the same must be substituted. 
Such was the plain of Shinar in Assyria, on the river Eu- 
phrates, where the great tower of Babel was begun by 
Nimrod, and afterwards finished by Ninus as the temple 
of Belus, where the worship of the sun was so long ob- 
served. How long this occurred after the deluge ; how 
many mountains and high hills they may have used on 
their migrations to this place ; how much error may have 
mingled with their worship ere they reached the plains ; 
how much of the worship of the sun may have been there 
established, are matters of dispute among the learned. 
Certain it is that this was the great metropolis of Sabi- 
anism, or Sun-worship, for ages after, and that reference 
was had in its very structure to the mount of the deluge, 
and the ark. Herodotus mentions that there was not only 
a temple on the top of this first and greatest of pyramids, 
which towered on high from the plain like the peak of a 
mountain, but a chapel or sacellum, lower down, with a 
figure of Belus in a sitting posture, as in Egypt. 

A reference to those in Egypt will throw light upon 
this point. The first of the pyramids in Egypt was built 
on the bank of the Kile,, in the form of a mountain, with 



0>~ THE DELUGE. 



233 



a temple or tower on the top. It was doubtless built by 
those who brought the Chaldean religion into Egypt when 
it was overrun by the shepherd kings, who subdued the 
original settlers, the descendants of Misraim the son of 
Ham, who it is believed had a purer form of worship. It 
was called " The Egyptian Babel," being an express copy 
of that at Babylon. 

Thucydides and other Greek writers speak of the remains 
of this neglected pyramid. Other pyramids, as those at 
Sackarra and Cairo, were built afterwards, in the same 
form, and doubtless during the six hundred years of bond- 
age to the shepherd kings, the period of its greatest glory 
in the arts and sciences. One of these is called the great 
pyramid, being larger than all others. In the centre, into 
which you must crowd hrough a small door and a long 
tortuous passage, much like a serpent, there is a chamber, 
thirty -four feet by seventeen and a half, with a pitch of nine- 
teen and a half. Thirty feet above this is another chamber 
of the same dimensions, except that it is lower pitched. In 
one of the other pyramids, to the north and west, there 
are suits of caverns cut out of the solid rock, with small 
doors. There was an interior chamber in the body of the 
pyramid, but the entrance to it was so closed up with 
rubbish that it was inaccessible. It is affirmed that these 
apartments were for the dwellings of the priests, and mys- 
terious religious celebrations.* 

Herodotus speaks of two other pyramids, which seem 
to refer still more to Mount Ararat. They were built 
where the lake Mieris was dug, the waters being let in all 
around them so as to ciicIom; and bury a part of them, and 

• Wo read in tho Prophets of n Ijcd being shorter thnti n mini enn stretch 
himself on it, ud tho covering narrower than he con wrap himself in. The 
cells of the priests were sometimes called beds, and were often very small. 
Such was especially the case with tho Druid priests, who were much given to 
amt'-riti't in ri'ligioii. Sumi- of tln ic cells were littlu moru than small arks 
or chests, in which they could scarcely move themselves. 



234: 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



thus give the appearance of the two peaks of Mount Ararat 
when the deluge was retiring. But we must not suppose 
the pyramids of Egypt were the only artificial mountains 
with doors opening into inward recesses, and thus bearing 
the resemblance to Ararat and the ark. Mr. Faber and 
others tell us of a large pyre with an oviform chamber in 
it, in the county of Meath, in Ireland, and of a still larger 
one in Wiltshire, in England. 

In Tanjore, of Asia, there is also a small island which 
is covered with a pyramid, all of whose sides rise up to a 
point from the water's edge, and appear like the peak of 
a mountain, in a retiring deluge. There was also a huge 
one near Tyre, said to have been built by earth-born giants. 
We find one also in the island of Otaheite, which is said 
to, be two hundred and sixty-six feet long and eighty-six 
wide. But besides these, England, Scotland, and Ireland 
are covered with smaller buildings of stone, or earth, or ot 
both, from a few feet square to twenty or thirty, which are 
the remains of the Druidical houses of worship. They 
are called Barrows, Cairns, and Cromlechs, and have in- 
terior cells or chambers, reminding of the ark and its 
door at the side. They are to be found on the tops of hills 
and mountains, or on the borders of lakes and seas.* 

* The stone arks or chests of the British Druids were formed of three large 
stones, set up rectangularly, and covered with a broad slab, being open on one 
side, representing the door of the ark. This was called the womb of the great 
mother Ceridwen, and was also viewed as a prison. These small arks were some- 
times the abodes of the Druid priests. It may not be amiss, in this connection, 
to mention that among the Israelites, by God's command, pillars and piles of 
stones, somewhat resembling the peaks of a mountain, were set up as memorials 
of great deliverances and of covenants,. When Joshua made a covenant with 
the people of Shechem, he took a great stone and set it up under an oak that 
was by some sanctuary, to be a witness between them. Also, when the people 
had passed through Jordan dry-shod, he made them erect two pillars of stones 
taken from the bed of the river, one being placed in the bed of the river and 
the other on dry ground in Gilgal, which were to be seen for a long time as 
memorials of deliverance from the waters of Jordan at the time when it over- 
flowed its banks ; and must they not have been reminded by these of the greater 
deliverance of Noah and his family from a greater flood ? 



OX THE DELUGE. 



235 



These were of early date, and evidently came from the 
East. The Brahmins are strong in their assertion of an 
early intercourse between India and the British islands. 
Britain has ever been celebrated for its religion. One of 
the islands was called the " White Island," or, as Aristotle 
named it, Albion — which the poets love to this day. In 
one of the Puranas, or sacred books of India, Britain is 
called Breta-st-han, or "The place of religions duty." 
The arkite religion — which dealt most in the veneration 
of the deluge, the ark, Ararat, and the Xoatic deities — 
was the favorite in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and 
also among the Atlantians of Western Africa, so that we 
may expect to see more of these memorials among them. 
When the apostate Hercules forced upon the Irish the 
worship of the sun, it is said they cursed it while wor- 
shipping it. According to Pomposius Mela, the Atlantians 
cursed the sun as he arose, and as he set : 

"Atlantes solem cxecrantur et dum oritur, ct dum occidit" 

But as there are various parts of the world where not 
only mountains but rocks and pyramids are not easily 
found, so we find that earth was used in order to raise 
something which might resemble a mountain for religious 
worship. In Ilindostan these mounds or tumuli abound, 
from five to twenty-five feet high, on which, upon certain 
days, portable shrines, with images of their deities, are 
placed. They are called Meru Seringas, or Peaks qfMeru, 
the Ararat of Asia. 

If we go to Upper Asia we shall find the whole of the 
plains of Tartary dotted with mounds or tumuli, from six 
to eight feet high, and often ten times wider at the base. 
Near Bardie the plain is covered with them, some of 
which, according to travellers, are of stupendous size. 

Though dead bodies are to be found in some few, yet it 



236 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



is well established that they are not intended or used as 
sepulchres, but for places of worship. And if we pass 
over from the Old world to the New, we shall find in its 
memorials a most important link connecting the two to- 
gether, and showing that their inhabitants had one com- 
mon origin. In the two Americas, among the Indians 
north and south, not less than three thousand of these 
mounds have been counted, varying in height from ten to 
two hundred feet. They are so ancient that the present 
race are unable to tell of their origin or design. That 
they are not sepulchres, with a few exceptions, has been 
well ascertained ; and that some of them in South Amer- 
ica were used for religious worship is also well known. 
But who can doubt their origin, when considering their 
universality and great antiquity ? 

But we have yet more numerous and striking memo- 
rials of the ark and Ararat in another class of sacred 
places to be found in Europe, Asia, and Africa. I allude 
to the temples, natural or artificial, in the interior of hills 
and mountains ; either caverns or excavations made by 
art, and divided into cells and chambers for the residence 
of priests, and the performance of religious worship or 
celebrations of dark mysteries. Could their number be 
estimated, or their figures and architecture displayed, 
what surpise would seize upon us ! 

Let us begin with Egypt. In Upper Egypt there are 
temples cut out of the granite rock of the mountains, 
three sides of course being closed. In the front only is a 
low, small door, as in the ark. Numerous cells and saloons 
are within, requiring artificial light. Mr. Bruce, in his 
"Travels through Egypt," says of these sanctuaries, " They 
are studied copies of the great gloomy ship of the 
deluge." 

Of that which was called the labyrinth of Egypt, He- 
rodotus says, "It exceeded all the other wonders and 



OX THE DELUGE. 



237 



works of that country ;" it had three thousand apart- 
ments, one half of them above, the other half below the 
ground. lie was only allowed to visit the former : the 
latter were for the celebration of their mysteries. . 

It is said that Sesostris built a huge and magnificent 
ship, of cedar, dedicating it to the Egyptian Osiris, who 
was exposed in the ark. This ship was in the interior of 
the country, and of course not intended for navigation. 
In various parts of the British isles the Druids had rock- 
ing stones cut in the form of a ship. Mr. Rooke examined 
thirty of them, and found them all formed by art, and 
capable of being rocked like a ship on the water without 
being overturned. There is a superstition in India which 
deserves to be mentioned as bearing witness to the pass- 
age out of the ark through the door, whereby the bless- 
ings of light and liberty were obtained. 

They pass or squeeze themselves through a perforated 
rock, in order to obtain what they call regeneration. 
Bishop Ileber tells us of a temple in Hindustan, to which 
devotees resort for regeneration. In it is a hole through 
which they pass from below, and, emerging above, they 
are purified from all their sins and come out regenerate. 
We must nut forget to mention the interesting testimony 
to the ark, which we have in the history of the preserva- 
tion of Moees, when a child, in the ark of the bulrushes, 
on the banks of the Nile. It was doubt lees committed 
to its waters with many prayers. Miss Hannah More's 
sacred drama of " Moses in the Bulrushes " represents the 
mother of Moses as thus describing her pious care in its 
construction : 

" Know that this ark is strongly cased 
With incantations Pharaoh ne'er employed, 
With magic spells which Kgypt never knew, 
With aspirations to the living (Jod. 
I twisted every slender reed together, 
And with a prayer did every osier weave." 



238 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



The celebrated labyrinth of Crete was of the same kind 
with those mentioned by Herodotus ; and the Minotaur 
confined therein was believed to have been none other than 
Noah, in the ark of many cells and chambers. The best 
idea of one of these temples would be derived from one 
of our subterranean caves seen by candle or lamp-light. 
If any are shocked at thus renouncing the light of heaven, 
and preferring such places to the temples lighted by 
God's glorious luminary in the heavens, let them con- 
template the tendency of such things in the splendid 
entertainments now become fashionable, in which at 
noonday the shutters are closed, and lamps and candles 
illuminate the halls and parlors. 

The temples for the idols in Peru and Mexico were also 
dark places. Those in Mexico, it is said, were darkened 
by the putrid gore of the victims which were offered to 
their idols. Justly does the Psalmist call those of the old 
world " The dark places of the earth, full of the habita- 
tions of cruelty." 

Passing from Egypt into Asia, we find the Persians, 
notwithstanding their reputed objection to temples, hav- 
ing their grottos in mountains. They are hewn out of 
perpendicular rocks, but so as to present the appearance 
of a square ark, in which there is an entrance through a 
small door. 

In Hindostan, the pagodas have a single small door, 
five feet in height. They are without windows, artificial 
lights being required within. In Upper India, the cele- 
brated grottos of Ella are hewn out of a solid pyramidal 
rock. The entrance is through a small door, as was that 
to the ark. "Within are lofty pillars and many apartments, 
in which are many images of their gods, especially those 
of Siva and Parvata, the deities which, according to the 
Hindoo mythology, floated on the surface of the deluge. 
In the island of Elephanta, three leagues from Bombay, 



ON THE DELUGE. 



239 



is another temple in a recess, thirty feet square. There 
is also one near Tyre, like the rest in form, hut with the 
addition of two towers which resemble the peaks of 
Ararat. There are also some remarkable ones near Inker- 
man, in the Crimea, being cut out of the solid rock, and 
filled with cells and chambers. They are supposed to be 
the work of the Iudo-Scythians at a very remote period. 

The resemblance between the ark, with the door in its 
6ide, and a cavern with its mouth, serves to exjdain the 
following tradition : 

The great father, in different countries, is often said to 
be " born from a cave," to be " nursed in a cave," and 
to have " dwelt in a cave." The most ancient god and 
king of Japan is said to have once hid himself in a cave, 
and was adored as sitting on a cow. The ark is often 
represented as a cow or ox, bearing the family of Xoah 
in its womb, and swimming the deluge. 

The British IIu was worshipped in a cleft or cavern of 
an island washed by the ocean. Apollo was worshipped 
in a cavern near the river Lethe or Styx. The small 
shrines of Buddha were actually built in rocky caverns. 
The Peruvians used to say that when the earth was repeo- 
pled after the deluge, their ancestors were born out of a 
cave. To this we may add that the great mysteries were 
always celebrated in caverns or in temples built like caves, 
and that the chief things celebrated were the facts of the 
deluge, — an ark or boat always being carried about by the 
hierophant, and their songs related the delivery of some 
god from the deluge. The philosophers, such as Plato and 
Pythagoras, always spoke of the earth " as the dark cav- 
ern of imprisoned souls." 

To the above we must add that the sanctuary of the 
Crimean sibyl was a cavern, and that the mouth of the 
oracle of Delphi was the fissure of a rock. Very different 
is the manner of our God. Ho said, by the mouth of the 



240 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



prophet Isaiah, " I have not spoken in secret in the dark 
places of the earth." When our Lord came, he spake 
openly, and bade his apostles to proclaim his words from 
the housetop. Whoever would see the abominations car- 
ried on in dark places, must turn to Ezekiel, chapters viii. 
and ix., where he depicts the same as transferred to the 
people of Israel. The sins of their holy things, in the dark 
chambers visited in the vision of the prophet, beggar de- 
scription. 

ISLANDS ALSO MEMORIALS OF THE DELUGE. 

We read much in pagan mythology of sacred islands 
and floating islands. They are the favorite abodes of the 
gods and the seats of oracles ; and, though at the first men- 
tion of it the assertion may seem strange, yet on a little con- 
sideration it will be seen that between a high mountain 
such as Ararat, and an island, there is no little similitude. 
What was Ararat, when the deluge was retiring from it, 
but a circular island in the midst of a boundless ocean ? 
Every island in like manner rises from the water, and is 
more or less like mount Ararat, as it is above the sea and 
is covered with hills or mountains. When Noah, then, 
looked out from the ark while resting on the mountain, he 
saw a boundless ocean around, himself on a small island. 
It was the whole world to him. He saw the circle of the 
world. The ancients considered the world as an island in 
the midst of the sea, and, leaving out America, was it not so? 
What are all Europe, Asia, and Africa, but a great island 
in the midst of the ocean ? Wherefore, many traditions 
tell of the deluge being the bursting of the bounds of the 
great lake or sea, and overflowing the land, and the inhab- 
itants being pursued by this monster, the sea, who is called 
Python or Typhon, one family alone escaping, in a raft or 
ship, to the top of a high mountain, or else burying them- 
selves in a cavern on the summit of the same. The ark, 



OX THE DELUGE. 



241 



with the little island or peak on which it rested, was indeed 
a world in itself, for it contained the seed of the world of 
men and beasts which were soon to replenish it. The 
learned Hale estimates the ark as being capable of bearing 
more than forty-two thousand tons, equal to eighteen Eng- 
lish men-of-war, and able to hold twenty thousand men 
with provisions for six months. It need not therefore 
seem so incredible that such numbers of animals should 
have been preserved in it. 

THE MYSTIC EGG OF MYTHOLOGY. 

"We read much, in connexion with the ark and the del- 
ude, of a mvstic ess which floated on the ocean during the 
deluge, and out of which was born a new world. It is 
sometimes the world itself, sometimes the great prolific 
father or mother of all things. In the celebration of the 
mysteries it was always a prominent symbol. It is carried 
about in the baris, or ark. In the hieroglyphics of Egypt 
and the Eastern world it is sometimes placed between the 
horns of a bull, which, as we have seen, represent the ship 
or ark, with its prow and stern. As the egg, over which 
the fowl has brooded, in due time brings forth from itself 
its young, so the Deity brings forth all things from him- 
self; and so the ark in due time brought forth from its 
wouih a new world. The ancient worship and celebration 
of the mysteries, as well as the poefsand philosophers] are 
fall of such figures and conceits, or fables as they were 
called, yet they point to some sacred truth* and events. 
The Hindoo theology i-, above all others, rich with this 
theme. The mystic egg is said to have floated for a year 
on the surface of the ocean, and then to have brought 
forth the great father, and his three sons, who are triplica- 
tions of their father, and who together make the Hindoo 
triads. 

10 



242 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



THE LOTOS, OK WATER-LILY, ANOTHER SYMBOL OF THE ARK 
AND DELUGE. 

In the mythologies of ancient nations, and in the celebra- 
tion of their worship, we read much of this remarkable 
aquatic plant. Its roots are nourished by water instead of 
earth. It shoots up in the form of a circular boat or bell, 
and floats like a vessel on the surface of the water. Its 
upright pistil is like the mast of a ship, and innumerable, 
almost infinitessimal seed are within the bell or calyx, which, 
when matured, are scattered by the winds and waves over 
the surface of the waters, to become the parents of new 
plants. It is prolific in the highest degree, and well might 
be selected to represent Noah and his family of men and 
beasts reposing on the surface of the ocean, and ready to 
repeople the earth and ocean with inhabitants. It is often 
confounded with the ark or baris, and the erect pistil is 
the hero or chieftain of the ark, the pilot or mast of the 
vessel. 

Other symbols might be mentioned testifying to the 
great facts of the deluge ; but if these be not sufficient to 
establish the universal belief of those facts in the ages 
nearest their occurrence, wherever the human race made 
its settlements, we despair of doing it. 

This only we add, that pillars of stone, sometimes of 
wood, called stocks, and stones or columns, soaring high 
in the air, and which abounded in various countries, are 
supposed to refer to this same great event which occurred 
on the great mountain of Asia. They all became objects 
of idolatrous veneration. Therefore it is that we are for- 
bidden to " bow down to stocks, stones, and dumb idols." 



CHAPTER XVII. 



THE DISPERSION FROM BABEL, AXD THE DIVISION OF THE 
EARTH AMONG THE DESCENDANTS OF NOAH. 

In the eleventh chapter of Genesis we have the follow- 
ing account of what will form the subject of this chapter: 

"And the whole earth was of one language and of one 
speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the 
East, they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they 
dwelt there. And they said, Let us build us a city and a 
tower whose top may reach unto heaven ; and let us make 
us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of 
the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city 
and the tower which the children of men builded. And 
the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all 
one language ; and this they begin to do ; and now nothing 
will bu restrained from them which they have imagined 
to do. Go to, let us go down and there confound their 
language, that they may not understand one another's 
speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence 
upon the face of the whole earth. And they left off to 
build the city: therefore is the name of it called Babel." 

It is believed that before this time, probably before the 
death of Noah, and by him, God had distributed the earth 
among his sons, although they had not taken possession 
of their portions in order to replenish the earth. They 
seem to have kept together, and to be disposed to form 
one mighty nation. By building a great city and a mighty 



244 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



temple, they thought to effect this. In all human prob- 
ability, through the corruption of human nature and its 
strong tendency to idolatry, they had already, in some 
measure, lost sight of the true God, as was the case with 
their fathers before the flood, and with the Israelites at a 
later period, notwithstanding God's wonderful dealings 
with them. Perhaps they had already begun to deify 
their great ancestor Noah, and his sons, if they had left 
the earth. Perhaps they imagined them transplanted to 
the heavenly bodies, and paid a joint adoration to them 
and their abodes. It may be that they were about to es- 
tablish some common worship in this great temple, and 
God saw lit to break up their schemes and disperse them 
through the earth. Such is the supposition of some of 
the learned, though no one can speak positively on a sub- 
ject which God has not thought proper to reveal to us, 
and to hand down by history and tradition. One thing- 
renders this hypothesis most probable, viz : the remark- 
able resemblance between the traditions and religious 
systems prevailing in all the countries into which they 
were scattered, not only in general principles, but in ob- 
servances of a merely arbitrary kind. 

Had different systems of religion and forms of worship 
been first invented and established in the different coun- 
tries where the tribes and colonies settled, we might have 
expected a great variety of doctrines and forms instead of 
that remarkable resemblance which is found to have ex- 
isted, especially at the first. The difference of names, 
arising from the variety and multiplicity of languages, 
seems to have been the chief difference. Thus, all the 
early traditions and histories point to"]Sroah and his sons, 
and the ark and deluge, though the names given to them 
are as numerous and different as the languages them- 
selves. There is some variety of opinion among commen- 
tators and mythologists as to the number of persons con- 



THE DISPERSION' FROM BABEL. 



•2±5 



cerned in building the city and tower of Babel, and as to 
the time in which it was done. Although it is not our 
plan to enter into such discussions, but rather to select 
such facts as are most generally agreed upon, and make 
the best use of the same for promoting the object we have 
in view, yet we cannot but incline to the opinion which 
places the dispersion after the death of Noah and of at 
least two of his sons, Ham and Japheth: the life of Shem 
being extended to five hundred years after the deluge. 
There is nothing in scripture or an} r other history to lead 
to the supposition that Xoah or either of his sons was at 
all concerned in this transaction: and there is something 
shocking in the thought that the}' could have been alive, 
and had become " hoary rebels" against the God whom 
they had served in their youth, and who had so wonder- 
fully preserved them. Epiphanius tells us, that from an- 
cient documents, whence the history of the Scythians (a 
very ancient people) was compiled, it appears that Xoah 
resided in Armenia until his death ; that his descendants 
multiplied there for six hundred and fifty-nine years, and 
then journeyed to the land of Sliinar. Bcrosus, the his- 
torian of Babylon and Chaldea, who drew his statement 
from the national archives, says that Zizuthrus, — that is, 
Noah, — died and was translated to heaven before the 
emigration from Armenia to Shinar. He says the same 
of the wife and children of Zizuthrus, that they were 
" transplanted to heaven," which means the game as be- 
ing deified. 

WTiatever difficulty there may be in deciding the exact 
chronology of t lie event, (and the uncertainty of early post- 
diluvian chronology is admitted,) these; testimonies from 
pagan writer-, establish the fact of a great emigration from 
Armenia to Shinar, where Babylon was built. IJerosus 
also confirms the scripture account of their coming from 
the Kast, which lias puzzled some persons since. Armenia, 



246 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



we know, is more to the north of Babylon. But Berosus 
says that " When they quitted the mountain upon which 
the ark rested, they travelled in a circle previous to their 
arrival at Babylonia." It is thought that they followed 
the course of the river Euphrates, descending by it to 
Shinar, and that by so doing they would take a route 
which would bring them from the East into Shinar, though 
not from the distant East. The other difference of opinion 
is as to the persons engaged in this work. Mr. Bryant, with 
others, thinks that only the descendants of Ham in the line 
of Cash, under the lead of his ambitious grandson, Nim- 
rod, were concerned in the rebellion at Babel ; and that 
they, after having settled further East, according to a previ- 
ous division of the earth, came to Shinar, and determined 
here to establish a mighty empire, as was actually done, 
notwithstanding their defeat in building the city and tower. 
He argues in favor of this from the fact that these descend- 
ants of Cush and Nimrod were the warriors of the earth, 
once overrunning almost all lands, and establishing their 
dominion in religious and civil government. Mr. Faber 
and others object to this, and quote the language of Moses, 
who says, " The whole earth was of one language and of 
one speech. And as they journeyed from the East, they 
found a plain in the land of Shinar, and there they dwelt. 
There they began to build the city and the tower ; and the 
Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon all the face 
of the earth, and confounded their language." This lan- 
guage is thought to be too strong and comprehensive to 
admit of the theory which limits the ambitious act to the 
descendants of Cush, although there are difficulties in the 
way of supposing that all the inhabitants of the earth were 
concerned in it. But if they had not so multiplied as to 
be too numerous and too much scattered to be collected 
for this purpose, we may suppose them to be so mingled 
together that a considerable portion of all the families de- 



THE DISPERSION" FROil BABEL. 



2±7 



scended from Noah might have been engaged in the work. 
But in one thing nearly all are agreed, viz : that the de- 
scendants ot'llam in the line of Cash and Nimrod were the 
chief actors, and that they were eminently scattered through 
the world, giving laws and customs and religious^systems 
and worship to many nations in Europe and Asia, as 
well as in the whole of Africa ; nor ceasing with these, 
for many of the tribes of America are most probably de- 
scended from the Asiatic branch. 

The division of the earth, we are told in Genesis x., was 
in the days of Peleg, the fourth in descent from Shem, the 
son of Noah. The word Peleg signifies division. Lie 
must have been coeval with Nimrod, the grandson of 
Ham and son of Cush, who was called " a mighty one in 
the earth," " a mighty hunter before the Lord." The be- 
ginning of his kingdom was Babel. In the brief sketch 
we shall give of the division and settlement of the earth, 
we will take the sons of Noah in the order in which they 
stand in the Mosaic history, viz : Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 
We would premise that it was the work of God himself, 
and most probably by Noah before his death, although 
they do not appear to have occupied their several lots until 
forced to do so by the judgments of God at Babel. 



TIIK DKSCKXDANTS OF SI I KM. 

In the thirty-second chapter and the eighth verse of the 
book <»f (ieiiesia, Moses says, "When the Most High 
divided to the nations their inheritance, when he sepa- 
rated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people, 
according to the number of the children of Israel." Hero 
is an evident allusion to the assignment of Judea to the 
descendants of Shem ; though it was seized on by the pos- 
terity of Canaan, who, as some one says, "in their whole 



248 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



history seemed to be conscious that they were usurpers." 
The only other notice we have of an assignment of a lot 
to the descendants of Shem, is in the tenth chapter of 
Genesis, where we read of Joktan, the brother of Peleg 
and son of Eber, from whom the Hebrews took their name, 
and who was the third in descent from Shem. Of Joktan 
and his descendants it is distinctly written, that " their 
dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest to Sephar, a 
mount of the east," that is Asia, east of Babylon. The 
south of Asia seems to have been settled by these ; they 
are the Hindoos, or East Indians, though, as we shall see, 
the descendants of Ham soon followed them, taking pos- 
session of large portions of Asia, and mingling with the 
descendants of Shem. 

The children of Shem were Elam, and Ashur, and Ar- 
phaxad, and Lud, and Aram. All these, the sons of the fa- 
vored son of Noah, seem to have settled in the countries 
around Babylon, and not far from Canaan. It is said of 
Ashur that he went forth from Babylon, and built Nine- 
veh, and other cities, and established the Assyrian empire, 
which took its name from him. 

Mr. Bryant thinks it probable that the expression " he 
went forth," meant he was driven out by Nimrod, whose 
kingdom was at Babylon, and that he built cities of 
defence against Nimrod. In the course of time the de- 
scendants of jSTimrod, at Babylon, called Cushites, were 
overcome by the Assyrians, and driven into Arabia and 
other places. They are supposed to have been the shep- 
herd kings who invaded Egypt, overcoming it, and 
reigning there for many centuries. It is thought that 
the countries settled by these sons of Shem were assigned 
to them in the division of the earth, — indeed, that Asia 
was given to Shem, Europe to Japheth, and Africa to 
Ham ; but that the ambitious descendants of the latter 
would not comply with this division, but seized on what 



THE DISPERSION" FROM BABEL. 



249 



countries they chose, preferring above all others the cen- 
tral regions, the portion of Shem. 

When the Israelites took possession of Canaan, the 
prophetic curse of Xoah was fulfilled on the son of Ham, 
who, according to some learned commentators, was prob- 
ably guilty of irreverence towards his grandfather. The 
curse was in these words : "Cursed be Canaan; a servant 
of servants shall he be to his brethren." The descendants 
of Canaan became subject, it is well known, unto the 
descendants of Shem and Japheth — their nation being 
utterly destroyed. 

Many of the other descendants of Hani have also been 
servants, although for the most part they have been lords 
over the rest. God has indeed blessed Shem, in making 
him the father of his chosen people and of the family in 
which the Saviour of the world was born.* 

TIIK DESCENDANTS OF HAM, AND THEIR LANDS. 

The sons of Ham were Cnsh, Misraim, Phut, and Ca- 
naan. Cush and his descendants seem to have been in 
pn.-viesMon of Unit part of Asia which comprised what, was 

* Mr. George Rowlinson's remarks concerning the descendants of Shem are 
worthy of insertion in this place. "What is especially remarkable of the 
Semitic family, ' that of Shem, i is its concentration, and the small size of the 
district which it covers compared with the space occupied by the other two. 
Deducting the scattered colonics of the Phoenicians, mere points upon the 
earth's surface, and the thin slip of territory running into Asia Minor from 
Upper Syria, tie- Semitie rai in tie- time of Herodotus, were OODfaUned 
within a parallelogram 1,000 miles long, from the parallel of Aleppo to the north 
of Arabia, and on an average of 400 miles broad. Once in the world's his- 
tory, and onco only, did a great movement proceed from this race and country, — 
that of the Saracens, which was only temporary. It had not the power of any 
vigorous growth and enlargement like that promised to Japheth, and possessed 
by the descendants of Ham. Hut with its phyiral ami material weakness is 
combined a wonderful capacity for afli cling the spiritual condition of our 
species. Semitic races have influenced, far more than any other, the history 
of the world's mental progress; and the principal intellectual revolutions which 
have taken place are traceable in the main to them." 



250 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



called the Assyrian empire, the first of the four great em- 
pires of the earth, covering all of Ethiopia in Asia, which 
is sometimes called Mesopotamia, and is the territory be- 
tween the Tigris and the Euphrates; also Chaldea and 
Babylon beyond the Euphrates, or the flood as it was 
sometimes called ; also Media and Persia. Nimrod and 
his successors were the first kings of this empire, some- 
times called the Cuthric, or Scuthric ; sometimes the 
Iranian empire. A large portion of the northern part 
was afterwards called the Scythian, which name, as well 
as the population, was derived from Cush ; it was also 
called Cuthite, or Skuthic. 

The other sons of Ham, viz., Misraim and Phut, took 
quiet possession of Egypt, and in time spread themselves 
over all Africa. Some think that Phut removed to India, 
and became the father of the famous sect of Buddha, he 
himself being the divine Buddha. After a time some of the 
descendants of Cush and Mmrod, being warlike and am- 
bitious, invaded Egypt, and took and held possession of it 
for six hundred years, with the exception of a short period : 
these were called " the shepherd kings," the Pharaohs of 
Egypt. Egypt was in its highest glory during their usur- 
pation. It was then that it reached its greatest attain- 
ments in the arts and sciences. But the descendants of 
Ham, through Cush and JSTimrod, soon began to send out 
their colonies along the Mediterranean, and to the north 
of Greece and Italy, and in time mingled themselves 
with the earlier settlements of Japheth, — until they became 
the Germans, Gauls, Celts, and Saxons of history. At 
length they took possession of the isles of the north, and 
became our ancestors — the Anglo-Saxons of England. 



TIIE DISPERSION* FROil BABEL. 



251 



JAPUETH AND niS DESCENDANTS. 

The sons of Japheth, according to Moses, were Go- 
mer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. 
"By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their 
lands, every one after his tongue, after their families, in 
their nations." The isles of the Gentiles were all those 
lying in the Mediterranean and Archipelago, — compre- 
hending, indeed, the whole of Europe, which is surround- 
ed by islands. Javan seems to have been the most prom- 
inent of the sons of Japheth, giving name to the first 
inhabitants of Greece, who were called Javanites, and 
afterward Jaonites. But Moses tells us that in Noah's 
prophecy over his sons he declares " God shall enlarge 
Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem." ^Ye 
have seen that Asia, or a large portion of it, was assigned 
to Shem ; but Japheth was to be enlarged, and dwell in the 
tents of Shem. This was fulfilled in the fact that all the 
northern parts of Asia, — that is,Tartary and Siberia, — were 
settled by the descendants of these, and that many of the 
Chinese are supposed to be from these settlements. To 
this we may add, the high probability that many of the 
North American tribes came from those who crossed over 
the narrow strait which divides the North of Asia from 
America. 

Having presented this geographical and historical view 
of the dispersion and settlement of mankind, as set forth 
in scripture, let us see how other histories and traditions 
confirm tin- same. Wu have already adduced some pas- 
sa;,'e> from Urn,, us and other ancient writers. To these 
we add the following. 

Among the Greeks, Chronus, their ancient god, who 
could have been none other than Noah, or Adam re- 
appearing in Noah, divided the whole earth between his 



252 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



three sons, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto. Plato mentions 
an ancient legend, that the gods formerly divided among 
these the whole earth. In the oracles of Zoroaster the 
Persian there is a similar tradition, except that the divi- 
sion is ascribed to Nous or the Intelligence, — that is, Noah, 
the father. In the Hindoo mythology we read of three 
worlds, under the god of the ark, Siva, which are sup- 
posed to be the three quarters of the earth, — Europe, Asia, 
and Africa, — under the three sons. There is one country 
mentioned in scripture whose name belongs to several dif- 
ferent places, and on which a few remarks are called for. 
It is that of Ethiopia. The name is derived from Ethiops, 
one of the names of Jupiter, the son of Vulcan. Concern- 
ing the Ethiopia which lies between the Tigris and the 
Euphrates, or what is sometimes called Mesopotamia, — 
that is, between rivers, — Stephanas, of Bysantium, says, 
" Ethiopia was the first established country in the world, 
and the people who first introduced the worship of the 
gods and who enacted laws." They are a branch of the 
Cushites, and the same with the Sythse, or Sythians, of 
whom Justin said, " The Sythse were ever esteemed, of all 
nations, the most ancient in the world." Situated as Asi- 
atic Ethiopia was, it must have been the most ancient of 
nations. There was another in the south of India called 
Ethiopia, whose inhabitants are black, though distin- 
guished from Southern Africans. Ovid, in his fable of 
" Perseus and Andromeda," represents Perseus as stealing 
and bearing away Andromeda from thence : 

" Andromeden Perseus nigris portavit ab Indis." 

There was another Ethiopia in Africa, from which 
the whole of it, or a large part of it, was called. Stra- 
bo tells us of a tradition among the people of Tartessus, 
opposite to Spain, that the Ethiopians, — those from Africa, 



THE DISPERSION FROil BABEL. 



253 



I suppose, — once traversed that region of Africa quite to 
its western limits, and that some of them came and settled 
at Tarteesns ; others got possession of different parts of the 
coast ; some lived near the island of Erythea." An ancient 
writer says, 

" Upon the great Atlantic, near the isle 
Of Erythea, for its pastures famed. 
The sacred race of Ethiopians dwell." 

Homer, in his " Odyssey," alludes to some in Mauritania, 
— a region of Africa, — as Ethiopians, and in stature the 
largest of any nation known to him." Eporns says that 
"The family of the Ethiopians seem to me to have estab- 
lished themselves from the winter tropic in the East to the 
extremity of the West." Strabo also speaks of them as 
extending " in a long line from the rising of the sun to the 
going down of the same." Who is not reminded of that 
beautiful and most encouraging passage in one of the 
prophets — " From the rising of the sun even unto the go- 
ing flown of the same, my Name shall be great among the 
heathen, Baith the Lord of Hosts; and in every place in- 
cense shall be offered untn my name, and a pure ottering V 
And how it enlarges our minds, when we read or hear the 
promise "Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands unto God,*' 
to think of a country stretching from India on the Pa- 
cific, to Mount Atlas on the Atlantic, across two conti- 
nents, ami from Gibraltar, or the Pillars of Hercules, to 
the Cape of i .d Hope, stretching out her hands in sup- 
plication or thanksgiving to the Lord for the gospel! 

In relation to that part of the scripture which speaks of 
Canaan a-, being the portion aligned to the descendants 
ofShem, but being seized npon by those of Nam, we ad- 
duce the following testimonies : Eusebius says, "Canaan, 
the -on of Ham, was guilty of trcspa.-n ami innovation upon 



254 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



the allotment of Shem, and took up his habitation there 
contrary to the commandment of God." Syncellus says, 
"The sons of Shem made war with the sons of Ham about 
the boundaries of Palestine." 

On the subject of the confusion and multiplication of 
languages at Babel, I have, in other parts of the book, 
alluded to traditions among the ancient nations bearing 
upon and confirming the Mosaic account. As to what 
was the one speech of which Moses speaks, or one lip, as 
it is sometimes rendered, which was certainly the language 
of Noah, and probably of Adam and the whole antedi- 
luvian world ; and as to the number of languages at Babel, 
— I state the opinion of Sir William Jones, one of the great- 
est scholars and linguists of his day, who spent many years 
of his life in India carefully studying the Eastern lan- 
guages and mythologies, and contributing largely to the 
volumes of "Asiatic Researches" published by the society 
of which he was president. 

After digging into the roots of various languages, and 
tracing all their stems and branches, and comparing them 
together, he concludes that there were only three lan- 
guages, from which all the rest sprung as dialects. These 
three he says are so essentially different in grammar, words, 
and construction, that neither of them could have been 
taken for the other. 

Mr. Faber says that if the original language given by 
God to our first parents, and preserved until the disper- 
sion, had been continued, and two others had been added, 
the effect would have been the same, — that is, confusion 
of tongues would have ensued. May not all, in some 
degree, have been drawn from the original one, and yet 
so varied as to answer the divine purpose ? 

It deserves to be mentioned, as one of the additional 
testimonies to the truth of scripture, that the laborious re- 
searches of eminent linguists, since the death of Sir Wil- 



THE DISPERSION" FROM BABEL. 255 

liam Jones, have continued to confirm his opinion. These 
have shown that the resemblance between all of the lan- 
guages upon earth is such that the)' must have come from 
a very few which began to be used soon after the disper- 
sion from Babel. Previous to that time, we have the tes 
timony of scripture that all were of "one tongue, or lip." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS AND WORSHIP OF THE DISPERSED 
IN ASIA. 

Theee have been and perhaps are still those who think 
that the confusion at Babel was rather a confusion of 
opinions and doctrines than of languages, by which God 
defeated their design of doing some great thing which 
displeased him ; that he sowed discord among them, and 
prevented them agreeing on any plan. The sacred narra- 
tive seems to contradict this, and tradition is in favor of 
the more general and literal construction put upon it. 
And yet it is highly probable that there may have been 
considerable diversity of opinion as to the religious sys- 
tem and worship to be established, however they might 
agree upon the main facts of their history, and the chief 
object or objects of their worship. If, as is most probable, 
this event occurred soon after the death of Abraham, 
then must we believe that false views of religion and im- 
proper adoration of some persons called gods may have 
existed before the building of Babel, as we find him and 
his father Terah seeming to yield to it. It may have be- 
gun before the descendants of Noah left Armenia and 
settled in Shinar. How long they were taking their jour- 
ney, by slow movements, as, the Israelites from Egypt; 
how long they dwelt in the plain before engaging in the 
work, is not known, and therefore we cannot decide posi- 
tively on the subject. Very ancient traditions speak of 



THE DISPERSED EN ASIA. 



257 



two sects before the dispersion, called Sythism and fonism, 
— the one exalting the male, the other the female principle 
in nature, — the oue disposed to exalt the great father, 
the other the great mother of the human race, for both 
were then very highly honored, if not worshipped. 

What other various opinions or systems may have ex- 
isted, if division had already begun, we know not, but 
certain it is that the earliest accounts since that time 
refer to religious differences. 

"We read at the present day of the two great sects in 
the East, called Buddhists and Brahmins, little thinking 
of their very early origin, and of their wide extension 
over all Asia, Europe, and Africa, and of their translation 
into America with the first colonists ; and also of their per- 
petuation for a long time in our country, perhaps their con- 
tinuance to the present time in some places. Those sects 
did indeed divide the whole world for a long time, though 
some modification of their tenets and 6ome additional 
objects of worship took place in different countries. 
Since Christianity took possession of Europe and a por- 
tion of Asia, one of these 6ects, Brahminism, has greatly 
declined, by comparison with the other, Buddhism. The 
latter greatly predominates throughout all Asia, though 
the former is still zealous for its peculiarities, its superior 
orthodoxy and antiquity. The nations of Europe were 
once attached to one or the other of them, though grad- 
ually modified in Greece and Italy by the introduction of 
practical ami philosophical principles. 

Thene sects, probably, as some think, issuing from Babel, 
spread themselves rapidly over Asia and a port of Europe, 
if it be asked wherein they differed, it will be difficult 
to give an answer to the question, — as difficult as to say 
wherein some Christian sects differ. The deities whom 
they worshipped, though called by different names, ac- 
cording to the various languages which came to be 
17 



258 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



spoken, were the same. Sir William Jones, in a learned 
article, establishes, beyond controversy, that all the leading 
deities of Europe, Asia, and Africa were the same, being 
none other than Noah's family in the ark. Various other 
learned mythologists have also established this. Other 
deities and objects of worship have been added, but these 
are the great deities of the pagan world, except the ineffa- 
ble First Cause, who is scarcely worshipped at all. The 
Brahma and Buddha of India were the same with the 
Jupiter, the Bacchus, the Dionusus, the Taut, the Hu, the 
Woden, the Hercules, and others of Europe, Asia, Africa, 
and America; therefore there was no difficulty in intro- 
ducing their worship, their system, and priests. As Noah 
had three sons, and was said to triplicate himself into 
them ; as Saturn triplicated himself into Jupiter, Nep- 
tune, and Pluto ; so Brabm divided himself into Brahma, 
Vishnu, and Siva, — and Buddha into Ismara and others. 
In proof that the great objects of their worship were the 
same, there is a common festival or adoration, when the 
various sects of Brahma and Buddha, which never mingle 
together at other times and places, but are quite bitter 
towards each other, meet in perfect friendship, kneel side 
by side, and know no difference. This is the dreadful 
feast of Jagan-Nath. or Juggernaut, at Orissa in India. 
The meaning of Jagan-Nath is " The Lord of the Earth " — 
their great common Lord. This has been called the cen- 
tre of their great theological unanimity. Immense num- 
bers come up to this, annually, from all parts of the land, 
both Brahmins and Buddhists. Not only the image and 
character of Jagan-Nath, but other deities whose images 
are with his, point to an identity of religion. This wor- 
ship is, like much other in the pagan world, a mixture of 
obscenity and cruelty. It is indeed none other than a re- 
newal of the worship of Baal and Moloch and Astaroth 
in Canaan. And all these were none other than Buddha 



THE DISPERSED IN ASIA. 



259 



and Brahma, with their triads, — in other words, Noah 
and his three deified sons. All who would wish to be 
fully satisfied on this point would do well to examine the 
works of Faber, Bryant, and manj 7 others who have 
written in relation to it. 

Mr. Harconrt, in his learned work on the deluge, says, 
i: Amid all the wantonness of polytheism, some very in- 
telligible hints remain, that the real objects of their 
multiform idolatry were only few, and those their earliest 
ancestors." The doctrine of the transmigration of souls, 
which prevailed from the Indies to the British Isles, being 
taught equally by the Brahmins and the Buddhist priests 
ainl the Druids of Gaul, was a great bond of union 
helping to unite the world in one common religion. 

But that there should be disputes on a subject of such 
great importance as religion, it is most reasonable to sup- 
in -c. There were such before the deluge, between the sons 
of God and those who corrupted religion, and the latter at 
length prevailed and produced a general apostasy. There 
were Controversies among the patriarchs after the flood, 
when idolatry began to encroach upon the true faith. So 
WON there among the Jews, when many of them forsook 
the law of Mo-c-, and the true worship of Jehovah, while 
others continued steadfast. So also was it with Chris- 
tianity, 'when some began to relapse into semi-paganism. 
So doubtless after the dispersion there may have been 
more of the true knowledge of 'roil with some sects than 
others. At this distance of time it is impossible to form 
any probable opinion as to the comparative orthodoxy of 
the two great sects now spoken of. The Ihiddhists, who 
were most zealously espoused by the descendant:- of Ham 
through the line of Cush, appear to have been more dis- 
posed to worship Noah under his astronomical character, 
— the Kam. The temples of the sun were chiefly dedicated 
to Jupiter Amnion, — that is, Ham. Others were much 



260 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



opposed to these fire-worshippers, as they were called, and 
preferred- to worship Noah as the god of the ark, being 
called Arkites. At an early period, when the descendants 
of Misraim, son of Ham, had possession of Egypt, when a 
more primitive religion prevailed, the worship of the sun 
was not established there. Diodorus Siculns tells us of a 
certain king, — a worshipper of the sun, — who had inscribed 
on one of his temples an imprecation upon Cneph, the 
ancient Egyptian king and god, thus showing the opposi- 
tion between the two systems. But after the shepherd 
kings, — who were worshippers of the sun,— invaded Egypt 
and took possession of it, great changes took place in their 
religious systems and worship. In the time of Joseph they 
worshipped On, or the sun, though doubtless connecting 
with it that of Osiris, supposed to be the same with ISToah. 
Other nations, though forced to worship the sun by the 
superior power of their conquerors, who were his worship- 
pers, would curse him when rising and setting, and even 
while engaged in the act of worshipping him. It is be- 
lieved that the ancient mysteries partook much more of 
the Arkite school, — all of their ceremonies and hieroglyph- 
ics relating to JSToah in connection with the ark and 
deluge. We read of a great contest between the Arkites and 
the Fire-worshippers under the lead of the first and great 
Hercules, who was an Arkite, about the oracle of Delphi, 
which was rich in treasures. We read also of a contest 
between the Arkites and Prometheus and his followers. 
He is supposed to be the grandson of Noah, and to have 
been the first to erect fire towers. We read much in an- 
cient history of the wars of the Titans, which must refer 
to the religious as well as political wars of the worship- 
pers of the sun, or Titan, Avho were chiefly the descend- 
ants of Ham through Cush and Nimrod. These were the 
giants of the postdiluvian world, as will appear when we 
come to speak of ancient Europe, where their greatest feats 



THE DISPERSED IN ASIA. 



261 



were performed. "We cannot omit some mention of them, 
however, in speaking of Asia, the southern part of which 
was settled at first by the descendants of Shem, and the 
northern part by those of Japheth, but whose middle part, — 
along the great range of mountains, — was taken possession 
of by the Cushites or Sythiaus, and whose ambitious and 
warlike character was such that we find them ever min- 
gling with the others, and dictating laws and religious wor- 
ship, probably being the priests and warriors of the others. 
To them, by general consent of historians, is ascribed the 
establishment of caste in India, Persia, China, and most of 
Europe, an institution which gave the chief character to 
these countries in ancient times, and still is the most prom- 
inent and most injurious feature in some of them. The 
Cushites, or Sythiaus, as we sec from Strabo and others, 
profess to be the most ancient people upon earth, and 
boast themselves against the Egyptians with their high 
claims. "When settling in India or Ilindostan, and estab- 
lishing caste there, the Cushites or Sythiaus claimed divine 
authority fur it. They declared that it was given to them 
by the god of the ark, among other regulations found in 
a book contained in the ark. The name of Noah with them 
was Maliahuh. Tin: book was called Mahabab's "Book 
of Regulations." The book which they profess to have 
thus gotten is still extant, and was examined by Sir "Wil- 
liam .l-ines, who declared it to be the same with the " Insti- 
tute- of Menu,' 1 which also claims to be of the same origin. 
Sir William Jones has translated the book of Menu into 
English. It contains many excellent rules fur government, 
and establishes the different orders <>r castes, giving great 
power to the parents. He thinks this book of Mahabab 
the same with that of Menu, and that it was carried into 
Egypt and there called the book of Taut, or Thoth, which 
contains the same division into castes. The priests and 
soldiers in both, as in all other countries where the do- 



262 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



scendants of Cusli prevailed, had immense controlling 
power. Sir William thinks that these were the same with 
the celebrated laws of Minos, or Meros, in Crete. The 
identity in respect to the priesthood in all countries is 
another proof of the common origin of religious institu- 
tions, when the people were all assembled at Babel. Py- 
thagoras, who spent forty years in travelling through dif- 
ferent countries, declared that he received the same in- 
structions from the Druids of Gaul, the Magi of Persia, 
the Brahmins of India, and the priests of Egypt. Who but 
must feel the force of this testimony ? 



THE RELIGIONS OF ASIA. 

Having taken this general view of the religious sects 
which sprang out of the dispersion or followed it, I now 
take the different quarters of the globe, according to their 
probable settlement, and in pursuance of the design of my 
book, will select such things in their religious history as 
will serve to establish the scriptural account of man. 

As Asia was the cradle of the human race, the favored 
spot of all God's visits to the earth, and as the first-born 
of Noah was assigned his portion on this continent, we 
will begin with it. Of the land of Judea, usurped, and 
for some time held by the denounced son of Ham, we 
shall say nothing particular in this place, as the scriptures 
are so full of its history, and as we have so frequent occa- 
sion to mention it elsewhere. Neither shall we dwell on 
Phoenicia, Persia, or Chaldea, having so often referred to 
them, and quoted from Berosus, Sanchoniathon, Herod- 
otus, and others concerning them. We will rather follow 
the descendants of Shem and Ham into Eastern Asia, and 
see what the Hindoos and Chinese will furnish us in aid 
of our endeavor to prove the divine origin of our holy relig- 



THE DISPERSED EN ASIA. 



263 



ion from their tradition and worship. We shall "derive our 
information chiefly from the volumes of the Asiatic So- 
ciety, which has for many years employed the ablest of 
scholars in searching into the literature and mythology of 
the East, and especially from the learned articles written 
by its able and excellent president, Sir William Jones, 
who spent so large a portion of his life in India. In his 
universal reading, struck with the resemblance between 
the religious history of all nations and the identity in the 
character of their gods, however different their names, 
(which of necessity must be, in consequence of the diver- 
sity of languages, the same god having as many names as 
there were languages,) he has written an article, already 
mentioned, showing the identity of the Eastern and West- 
ern deities. Old Janus at Rome, the oldest of kings and 
gods, has one in Ilindostan minutely answering to him. 
Old Saturn, of Greece, has a striking counterpart in Saty- 
avater. Ceres, the daughter of Saturn, has her counter- 
part in one called the goddess of Abundance among the 
Hindoos. These are only specimens of his comparative 
view. The Indians, he says, believe that water, or chaos, 
was lir>t cnafed. according to Mom--,' account. As to the 
first Cause of all things, about which 60 much has been 
said by philosophers and mycologists, the Hindoos called 
the first inclination of the godhead to diversify himself, by 
creating worlds, by the name of Maya. Sonic, as we have 
saitl, called it Sagacious Love, reminding us of St. John's 
definition, " (J v d {# love." As to the ancient Jupiter, who 
u;h before all others, — not the sou of Saturn, but of un- 
known parentage, — "The Life Giver," "The Father of 
god, and men," or, according to Orpheus, the Jupiter 
who produced the earth, and gods, and goddesses, and 
men, tbe Abyss and Emporium, Sir William nays that lie 
answers well to the Ihahm of the Hindoos. He doubted 
for a long time whether their Veda, or sacred books, were 



264 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



extant, but at length obtained and translated many of 
them. 

The Puranas are also sacred books among the Hindoos, 
consisting of prayers and holy maxims. The following is 
an extract from one of these books : 



DESCRIPTION OF THEIR FIRST DEITY. 

" Even I was, even at first — not any other thing existed ; 
that which exists unperceived, snpi-eme ; I am that which 
is, and he who must remain I am." In his Treatise on the 
Mystical Poetry of the Hindoos, Sir William gives us 
some interesting specimens. The following is from the 
Poems of Hafis : "In eternity, without beginning, a ray 
of thy glory gleamed, when love sprang into being, and 
cast flames over all nature. From the moment that I 
heard the divine sentence, ' I have breathed into man a 
portion of my spirit,' I was assured that we were his, and 
lie ours. Oh ! the bliss of the day when I shall depart 
from this desolate mansion ; shall seek rest for my soul ; 
shall follow the traces of my beloved ! " 

The following is from one of their Vedas, or Puranas : 
" Originally there was soul only. He thought, I will create 
worlds. So he created worlds. Then, I will create guar- 
dians of worlds. He framed out of the water an embodied 
being:. He showed him to the deities whom he had made. 
They exclaimed, Well done ! Oh ! wonderful !" Other 
contributions to the volumes of the "Asiatic Eesearches" 
deserve to be mentioned. Francis Buchanan informs us that 
they call the universe Logha, which signifies succession, — 
production and reproduction, — being successively destroyed 
by water, and fire, and wind, and restored again. To this 
we way add, that the Hindoos, as well as the mythologists 
of the West, say that at every renovation of the world 



THE DISPERSED IX ASIA. 



265 



the same events take place, the same heroes appear. Bu- 
chanan says, as to their views of transmigration, that they 
believe the sonl perishes with the body, and that out of 
the same materials another body arises, which becomes 
either a man, an animal, or something else, and that such 
changes take place in one or more worlds, until they reach 
the most perfect of all states, which is a kind of annihila- 
tion, free from all suffering and death. 

Mr. Colebrook, a writer in the "Asiatic Researches," 
gives us the following account of the Hindoo sects : " Five 
great sects exclusively worship a single divinity. One 
recognizee the five divinities which are adored by the other 
sects respectively. But the followers of this comprehen- 
sive scheme mostly select one object of daily devotion, 
and pay adoration to other divinities on particular occa- 
sions only. Even they deny the charge of polytheism, 
and they repel the charge of idolatry. They justify the 
practice of adoring the images of celestial spirits, by ar- 
guments similar to those which have been elsewhere em- 
ployed in defence of angel and image worship." Mr. Pat- 
tUMD, — another writer on the Hindoo religion, — thinks 
that it was founded at first on pure deism, but in order to 
comply witli tin: ideas of the multitude, they personified 
the three great attributes of God, — his Almighty power 
to create; h is providence to preserve; and his power to 
annihilate or change- what he has created. Therefore 
they worship Brahma, as creator; Vishnu, as preserver; 
Siva, de^tr-.yer. This, however, led to divisions and 
wars which long disturbed the whole land. To this, lie 
adds a very ju t remark: " The mass of mankind lose 
sight of morality in the multiplicity of rites ; and as it is 
easier to praeti-e ceremonies than to subdue evil passions, 
ceremonies gradually became substitutes for real religion 
and usurped the place of morality and virtue." Such was 
emphatically the case with llindostan and Kgy pt, which 



266 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



ever had much intercourse with each other, and adopted the 
same principles and customs. The change in the names 
of the gods was all that divided them, and this the diversity 
of languages required. The worship of animals was such, 
in both countries, that their very excrements were some- 
times feasted on. Everything that had life, — whether 
animal or vegetable life, — was supposed to have some- 
thing of the deity in it, and was worshipped. Eating 
animals alive, as well as their excrements, was practised. 
"Wherefore it is said of Orpheus, the poet, "Ccedibus et 
victu foedo deterruit." I conclude on the subject of the 
Hindoo religion, by referring to one topic which makes a 
prominent feature of it, and which ought to be properly 
understood. I mean the avaturs, or manifestations of the 
deity in human form. A Mohammedan writer, who be- 
lieved in it himself, said that " The divinity existed in 
Adam, and was transmitted through him to Noah, and so 
on, through kings and great men of different countries. Va- 
rious countries, — such as Egypt, Hindostan, and China, — 
had their dynasties of kings, gods, and demigods reigning 
over these. The higher we go in the histories of nations, 
the more we read of the gods and demigods, or avaturs 
and manifestations of the deity." This, indeed, is the his- 
tory of the gods of the heathen to the time when Julius 
Caesar and Augustus were aspiring to be worshipped, some- 
times even during life. So it was with Nebuchadnezzar, 
and Darius of Persia, who required public worship of their 
people. This explains what is meant by Vishnu of Hin- 
dostan being the ninth avatur, or manifestation of God. 
He was Noah, the ninth from Adam who received divin- 
ity from Adam, through a line of patriarchs and kings 
before the flood. It is easy thus to account for the numer- 
ous Jupiters, Herculeses, and Apolloses in pagan history. 
Strabo says there were three hundred Jupiters and forty 
Herculeses in his day among the gods, all from one of each 



THE DISPERSED IX ASIA. 



267 



name. No wonder that Ovid should speak of the turha or 
rabhle of gods in his day. 

A few remarks on China will close this chapter. Sir 
William Jones says they designate their country "AH that 
is under heaven," that is, " all that is valuable on earth." 
Another title taken to itself is the " Celestial Empire." 
Of its first settlement different opinions prevail. Some 
derive the first colonists from Tartary, others from India. 
Si» William Jones inclines to the latter. Others believe 
them to have come from both countries. Their great Con- 
fucius acknowledges the difficulty of settling the question. 
Their priests and religion were certainly from India. Their 
hieroglyphics were not from Egypt. They certainly had 
a knowledge of the deluge, and believed in a Supreme 
God. Before the time of Confucius they believed in genii 
and tutelary gods, and offered victims and sacrifices on 
high places. The morality of Confucius is certainly of a 
higher order than that of any other pagan writer. The 
doctrine of forgiveness of injuries is emphatically set forth, 
and the practice enjoined. 

The following, on the religion of China, is from a recent 
work by a Mr. Murray : 

"The belief in an almighty superintending power, under 
the name of Tien, Heaven, or of the great Shang-ti, with 
r.a<-rilir.-s "ii' ivil c.-rtain high occasions in his honor, 
comprehends almost the entire circle of orthodox faith 
and observance." 

But the charge of direct atheism, which has been brought 
against the primitive religion of China, .seems to be with- 
out foundation. Sonic very unintelligible -peculations 
indeed, said to be derived from the source of the Y-king, 
refer to a mysterious principle or power called Tayki, 
which, operating through certain active and passive agent* 
called yang and yiu, has given form to the various objects 
which compose the universe. Still, the Tien, or great 



268 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Shang-ti, always appears decidedly superior to the Tay- 
ki as a being at once moral and intelligent. 

Confucius, who founded his system upon reverence for 
ancient times, and became himself the chief authority upon 
which the Chinese sought to found their belief, appears to 
have trodden in the steps of the early sages. We find 
him uttering the following sound maxims : " Worship the 
deity as though he were present ; " "If my mind is not 
engaged in worship, it is as though I worshipped not*; " 
" Offending against heaven, there is no supplication that 
can be acceptable." Still he seems not to have received 
religion as a principle of action, or even as a sentiment 
that ought to be made very familiar. Another particular 
in which the religion of China contrasts not very favor- 
ably with the least approved in the pagan world, consists 
in the imperfect ideas entertained respecting the future 
state. In certain crude speculations relating to the nature 
of mind, the souls of the good are represented, after leav- 
ing the body, as ascending by their native buoyancy, and 
mingling with the heavens from which they came. The 
rites performed in honor of ancestors are accompanied 
with the belief that their souls still exist, and are sensible 
of the homage paid to them ; yet this tenet is not held 
forth as the ground of hope or the support of virtue.' 
We have not found in the writings of Confucius any 
thing contrary to the belief in a future state, yet he no 
where inculcates or makes it the basis of his precepts. 
The gloom which involved his latter days was in no de- 
gree cheered by those hopes of a better world which, 
even without the aid of revelation, so brightly illuminat- 
ed the closing scenes of the life of Socrates. Instead of 
future retribution, the Chinese moralists and legislators 
endeavor to support virtue by rewards and punishments 
as administered by divine Providence in the present 
world. The religionists, however, seem chiefly to have 



THE DISPERSED EST ASIA. 



269 



attracted votaries by holding out to them the hope of 
prolonging the short span of* life on earth by conforming 
to certain rules, and the application of certain means. 
The supposed intercourse between the condition of spirits 
and men, afforded to many the comfortable belief that as 
they had originally come down from the celestial abodes, 
they would, after death, reascend, and occupy a more 
conspicuous station. But to princes and great men these 
sectaries recommended themselves chiefly by the wild 
and delusive hope of an earthly immortality, for to 
those who possessed every good that this world eould be- 
stow, its perpetual duration was of all boons the most 
desirable. That there existed somewhere on earth a 
fountain possessed of this marvellous and fabled virtue, 
was a. doctrine always held by this visionary sect. In 
one account it is said, " On the summit of a mountain 
is a garden, where a soft zephyr blows without ceasing, 
and agitates the leaves of the beautiful Tong trees by 
which it is surrounded. This enchanted garden is placed 
near to the closed gate of heaven: its waters are the yel- 
low fountain which is very sweet and most abundant ; it 
is calli-d the Fountain of Immortality. Those who drink 
of it never die." Klsewhere it is said, "Life came from 
it, and it is the road to heaven." 

In conclusion, we say, that if before the time of Con- 
faeilM the Chinese believed in genii and tutelary deities, 
we rliail m c in the appendix that alter his time they wor- 
shipped the manes or spirit.- of the deceased, and made 
gods of them. Confucius himself being the chief of them. 



270 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



APPENDIX. 

In the preceding chapter we have chiefly dwelt on the 
earliest traditionary religions of the Asiatics, especially 
of the Hindoo and Chinese systems. But to do justice 
to this part of our subject we must refer to changes tak- 
ing place in the same, under reformers, philosophers, and 
priests, as was the case in all countries. Professor Hard- 
wic has devoted a large part of his learned work to the 
later developments of the Asiatic systems. He admits 
the very early existence of systems which were at least 
the foundations or beginnings of Brahminism and Budd- 
hism, which have so long prevailed over all Asia as well 
as elsewhere. He traces them to a period anterior to the 
Mosaic dispensation, and thereby admits the probability 
of what we have said as to religions divisions, even be- 
fore the dispersion from Babel. We give, in brief, the 
substance of this learned writer's investigations. 

The most ancient and authoritative of the Hindoo 
sacred books are the Vedas. The Rig-Yeda is the most 
prominent of them, and contains more than a thousand of 
their canticles and prayers. We find nothing in them 
of a trinity or triad of gods. The doctrine of one great 
First Cause was not absolutely banished from the hearts 
of bards and rishis. But the idea of one God, supreme 
and spiritual, never formed a prominent article in the 
early creeds of India. "It retired far off into the back- 
ground. It seldom operated as the principle of life. It 
was the feeble and expiring echo of an elder and purer 
revelation." And even when they uttered this echo, the 
great being was rather " a nature god, than the god of 
nature." He was not' "a personal, self-conscious being, 
ruling over nature as his works." " It bordered on pan- 
theism, often passing quite over the border." The Hindoo 



THE DISPERSED IN ASIA. 



271 



deified the elements, and even in the offerings and sacri- 
fices which lie presented, he worshipped the deity as 
present in them, as some among us worsliip the Saviour 
as present in the bread and wine of the sacrament. When 
he oft'ers a sacrifice, he invites his favorite god, and the 
winds and fire, to come down and taste of his abundance, 
while the great God of nature appears to be overlooked. 
Such, in truth, was the case of all the pagan worship. 
It was lavished on the inferior deities as being nearer to 
men. As to the spirit and the objects of the Hindoo 
prayers, " we look in vain for penitential psalms or 
hymns, commemorating the descent of spiritual benefits." 
Their prayers to the gods are nearly all for some temporal 
prosperity, as in Greece and Rome and all other pagan 
lands. As an exception, one is given in a Veda which 
reads thus: "Come, thou giver of life, and relieve us, 
prudent king, from our offences ;" and pleads the efficacy 
of their invocations and sacrifices. "Ye ask and receive 
nut. because ye a-k amiss, to consume it on your lusts;" 
describes the character of pagan petitions. 

As to the unity of the Hindoo god, it consisted in all 
Other fom a of existence being traced up to him as their 
head, and are only rays of his glory. "The best concep- 
tion of the Supreme Being in the highest systems of 
Hindoo philo.-ophy," says I lanlwic, " are one-sided and 

Imperfect." 

"Their belief in one God," says Rammohun Roy, as 
(rooted by Professor Wilson, "was held in consistency 
with the belief of innumerable gods and goddesses, who 
possess in their M-vi-nd departments full and independent 
power. To propitiate them, and not the true God. tem- 
ples are erected and ceremonies performed." 

The Brahmin philosophy saw production and destruc- 
tion and reproduction throughout all nature; and these 
were adored 88 three deities, and constituted the triad of 



272 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



India. As to the elder Brahm or Brahma, from whom 
Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva came, he was so far removed 
from finite, sinful beings, that no temple was erected or 
victim offered to his honor ; nor did the personified Brahma, 
first of the three emanations, ever attract much popular 
favor. He, too, was a god afar off. The Hindoos offer sacri- 
fices, not to God, but to the gods, and the worshipper and 
the worshipped differ only in degree, both being creatures, 
and both deriving nourishment from the offering. Their 
sin-offering was an animal slaughtered and burnt, and was 
the chief sacrifice. This was offered to the whole group 
of Devas or gods, and perhaps in them to the Supreme 
Intelligence. It was held that " the worshipper who 
offered up an animal, duly consecrated, is able thereby to 
buy off all the deities at once." 

As to the fall of man, Mr. Hardwic, ever cautious in 
admitting proofs of a connection between pagan traditions 
and scripture revelation, admits that here, as everywhere 
else that human steps have wandered, there are dim tra- 
ditions of the fall of man, and distant echoes of some 
promise of redemption, though they have been exagger- 
ated by some. Their idea of sin is indeed inconsistent with 
that of the Mosaic account. Their philosophical system 
holds that man is an emanation of Brahma, and is not 
chargeable with sin — that Brahma, who made him, is 
guilty. " Even to this day, the missionary, when speak- 
ing of righteousness and judgment to come, is sometimes 
met with the answer, I have neither sin nor guilt, for 
everything is wrought in me by Brahma." Such is also 
the doctrine of the Buddhist, who denies emphatically 
that the origin of evil is ascribable to any cause except 
" the mischievous and corrupting temper of man," received 
by emanation from Brahma ; but in the creed of popular 
Brahminism, the sin of our first parents was traced up 
direct to the guilt and malice of a tempter, not within us 



THE DISPERSED 12* ASIA. 



273 



but without us. That tempter was, in form at least, a 
serpent. The Hindoo legends, also, which go back to the 
early ages, very much resemble the account we have in 
the golden age of other nations, and remind us of man 
in paradise. The philosophical systems, however, super- 
seded and did away with them all. 

As to the method of recovering from the fall, the philo- 
sophic Buddhists "make ritual punctuality moral merit." 
" They lay the emphasis on repetition of texts — invocation 
of a host of deities — obedience to parents — and mercy to 
lower animals." The Deva or god who announces the 
coming destruction, tells how it may be avoided : " Let 
him assist his parents, respect his superiors, avoid the five 
sins, and observe the five obligations." The idea of an 
atonement or substitution had been departing more and 
more from the Hindoo mind for a long time. In place of 
this, rigorous penances and daily sacrifices had been gain- 
ing ground, until buddy tortures, instead of penitential 
exercises and works of charity, made up their religion. 

Aa to their avaturs, or descents of their gods, their philo- 
sophic systems turned the ancient legends into innumer- 
able incarnations. Any one might become a Buddha, or 
god, by a certain process of fasting and penance and 
religious observances. Still some legends of the avatur, 
or incarnation of a great god or king, appeared from time 
to time. One there was which so exactly answered to 
tin- account of Christ in the gospels, that it was suspected 
of being copied from one of them. Sir William Jones, 
on careful examination, became satisfied that it was in- 
troduced in the first or second century, when Christianity 
bad, according tu Kii-ebius, found its way into India, and 
modified and improved the moral and religious system of 
the Hindoos. So considerable was this change, that Mr. 
IJelsham, an Knglish intidel, atlirmed that the gospels did 
not teacfa a purer monotheism or unity of the Godhead than 
18 



274 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



do the sacred books of the Hindoos ; which was, however, 
a great exaggeration. Yoltaire tried to prove the same, 
by publishing an Eastern book full of resemblances to 
the Christian religion ; but it turned out to be the fabrica- 
tion of a Jesuit missionary, who wished to propitiate a 
learned class of Hindoos [by showing that to their fathers 
were known some truths of Christianity. Concerning the 
philosophic systems of the Hindoos, we may perhaps 
say, they often bore about the same proportion and re- 
semblance to the ancient legends, from which they were 
probably derived, as those legends did to original and 
revealed truth, from which they were perverted. 

THE RELIGION OF CHINA. 

Still taking Mr. Hardwic for our guide, and condensing 
his views, we would say as to the metaphysical or philo- 
sophical religion of a later period, as we might say of 
the Hindoo and other systems, that the theories of some 
of our modern free-thinkers, who are wise in their own 
conceit, are "little more than a return to long, exploded 
errors, and a resuscitation of ancient volcanoes," which 
long since prevailed among the speculative religionists of 
the East. The governing class in China, we are assured, 
have long been familiar with the metaphysics of Spinoza. 
They have also carried out the licentious social principle 
of M. Comte, on the largest scale. For ages they have 
been what some people of the present day are wishing 
to become in Europe. But we will give a brief sketch of 
the rise and progress of their nation and religion. There 
is reason to believe that portions of her present territory 
were the seats of thriving and fully organized communi- 
ties, not less than two thousand years before the Christian 
era, that is, about six or seven hundred years after the 
deluge, if we take the mean or average chronology of the 



THE DISPERSED IX ASIA. 



275 



different versions of the Bible. It is true that no authen- 
tic records survive later than the sixth century before 
Christ ; but cups of the Chinese porcelain have been 
found buried in the ancient sepulchres of Egypt. The 
whole empire seems to have sprang into civilization at 
one mighty bound, and to have grown into a world of 
itself. The Middle Kingdom, as it is called, was re- 
garded as the centre of the universe. Their sacred 
writings were called " The King," or " The Books." 
Although the Chinese believe in nothing supernatural, 
that is, in no God who has ever revealed himself to man, 
still they believe that the author of their sacred books 
was possessed with an unerring instinct which enabled 
him to see into the truth of all things. His teachings were 
therefore infallible. There was also a succession of sages 
who, by hard study, gradually came to the knowledge of 
truth. The first of their body, the infallible author of 
"The Books," was named Fun-he. Ancient tradition says 
that he, with seven companions, escaped from a deluge, 
and thus identities him witli Noah. II is first book, called 
" Yih-King," has much about creation. The second, 
" Shoo-King," is more historical. The third is "She- 
King,'' and ha- more than three hundred moral odes, in 
which are mournings over our corruption, and aspirings 
after a better state. 

CONFUCIUS, TEE BBPOBKEB. 

About the ninth century before Christ, and when 
great changes in the ancient religion and customs 
had taken place, arose the great Confucius, who led 
the Chinese hack to the ancient models. "My way of 
teaching,'' he said, " is simple. I cite the patterns left us 
by the ancients." lie collected the ancient laws and tra- 
ditions, and digested them into a system. "The system of 



276 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Confucius," says Mr. Hardwic, " though planted in the 
twilight of the world's history, (about the time of Aristotle,) 
was not perfected until the twelfth century of the Chris- 
tian era, when the Magna Charta was obtained in Eng- 
land. The emperor is the centre and moving principle, or 
main-spring, of the whole. Heaven is present in him. He 
is the celestial potentate, — the pattern of ideal excellence. 
" I am one man," — that is, the only being of the kind. 
He is also the great high priest of the nation to offer the 
highest sacrifices, though there are inferior ones to offer 
the lesser saciifices. The early emperors sacrificed to the 
hills and rivers, and the host of heaven. But in these 
most solemn exercises all is cold and callous. There is no 
consciousness of personal demerit. It is equally distant 
from the penitence of the Hebrew and the Christian, and 
from the asceticism of the Hindoo. Pride and self-compla- 
cency characterize the yearly sacrifice of the emperor. 
The Chinese philosophers affirm that " Every man is, at his 
birth, in possession of a nature radically good." " Human 
nature," says a great Confucian authority, " is good, just 
as water has a tendency to flow downwards." " Water, 
by beating, may be made to splash over your head, and, 
by forcing, may be made to pass over a mountain ; but 
who would say that this is the natural tendency of water ? " 
This is the result of some unavoidable connexion with 
matter, and there is therefore no painful consciousness of 
guilt ; " and as moral guilt is thus unknown to the disciples 
of Confucius, so neither does he manifest any wish or 
craving after spiritual regeneration. " Confucius never 
refers to a pure and righteous God, whose moral law is 
broken by sin." The chief objects of worship among the 
followers of Confucius were the spirits or manes of the de- 
parted. He himself became the chief object. He was 
declared to be equal to heaven. The whole empire was 
dotted over with temples to him. Sixty thousand animals 



THE DISPERSED IX ASIA. 



277 



•were provided by government, besides numerous private 
ones, to be sacrificed to his manes. They allege as a rea- 
son for worshipping their ancestors, that they owe their 
being to them, — standing in the relation of a creature to 
its Creator. They repair annually to their graves, pros- 
trating themselves on the ground, and offering food to 
their hungry spirits ; for many think that the spirits actu- 
ally receive nourishment from the subtile portion that is 
carried to the ground, though in one of their books it is 
said the meaning is, " That we ought always to have the 
dead before our eyes, and honor them as if they were still 
living." Their parents were considered as the chief min- 
isters of heaven to them. It must be stated that the wor- 
ship of China, compared with that of many other nations, 
is pure and chaste. Of late the worship of virgins and 
chaste matrons has been much on the increase. 

As to the belief in one Supreme Being, anything like our 
God, there is diversity of opinion. Some Romanists sought 
to propitiate the Chinese by finding an identity between 
the principles and the god of Confucius and those of Chris- 
tians ; but the .Jesuit, Longobardi, denies any such affin- 
ity, affirming that during their whole historic period, — 
whatever may have been in more ancient times, — they 
never worshipped ;i supreme spiritual intelligence inde- 
pendent of the visible universe. Mr. Ilardwic examines 
this question thoroughly, and concludes thus: "After 
tli leading my way as far us possible among this tangled, 
and in many points conflicting evidence, I am led to 
the conclusion that in China, as elsewhere, had lingered 
from primeval ages the conception of one living, bounte- 
ous, and paternal Providence, who-- earthly shadow was 
believed to sit exalted far above his fellows on the throne 
of the Middle Kingdom ; but that, ultimately, this concep- 
tion was broken and obscured until the unity of Cod no 
longer formed the basis of the Chinese Breed." After this 



278 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



the philosophers took hold of it and made a god for them- 
selves. 

Confucianism, or a rival sect of it called "Lao-Tee," pre- 
vailed for five or six centuries in China, but in the first 
century of Christianity Buddhism made an inroad into the 
empire, and was attended with a most rapid and entire 
success. Flattering the emperor, it obtained his patron- 
age so far as to be made a state religion, though violently 
opposed by the followers of Confucius. This Chinese 
Buddhism is usually called Fohism, which is only another 
name for Buddhism. 

THE MEDO-PERSIAN SYSTEM. 

Though this is one of the religions of India, yet, as we 
have had occasion to notice it in other places, we shall 
make but brief mention of it here. As to its birthplace, 
or the birthplace of the nation, the learned differ; and 
we shall not undertake to discuss the question. The estab- 
lishment of anything like a Medo-Persian empire was long 
anterior to some others. The fact of its proximity to the 
birthplace of the human family, and to the mountain of the 
ark from whence the world was renewed, and of its being 
the country whence wise men were led by the guiding of 
a star to welcome the Saviour into the world, must ever 
give it a peculiar interest to the Christian. Here did 
Cyrus, the friend and patron of Daniel, the prophet and 
historian of the Lord, reign. Here also did Darius, 
another friend and patron of Daniel, hold his court. Here, 
on the great rock of Behistan, hundreds of feet in the air, 
is engraven the history of this Darius, corresponding 
with that in the book of Daniel.* From the seat of this 

* The following is part of an inscription now to be seen on the tomb of Da- 
rius, a few miles north of Persepolis, the seat of his empire. It is translated 
from the cuneiform characters of Persia by Sir Henry Rawlinson. " The great 



THE DISPERSED EN ASIA. 



279 



empire issued decrees from both of these sovereigns, that 
in every province of their kingdom the God of Daniel 
should be worshipped. Ancient legends there are belong- 
ing to this country, which seem to some to speak of a per- 
sonal god, called "Time without bounds," or "Uncre- 
ated Time," whom philosophy afterwards styled the " Uni- 
versal Being," regarding him as the personification of 
eternity, and the basis of all beings. " We are at liberty 
to argue," says Hardwic, " that faint glimmerings of one 
only God, — inert indeed, if not impersonal, — but still the 
primal cause of all things, are discernible here and there 
in the remains of Medo- Persian heathenism." Ormazd the 
Good shines gloriously and inestimably above all that 
were called - gods. By common consent, whatever may 
have been the source of it, whether greater intercourse 
with the Hebrews, or primeval revelation handed down 
by tradition, sounder views of God and religion prevailed 
in Persia than elsewhere. Of the primitive state of man, 
his tall by the temptation of the evil one in the form of a 
serpent, as held in ancient Persia, we have already spoken, 
and shall not needlessly enlarge this supplement by adduc- 
ing more of the many testimonies which might be furnished. 

god, Ormazd, — be gave this earth; he gave that heaven ; he gave mankind ; he 
made Darius king. .Says Darius theking, — Ormazd, when he saw that the world 
wm heretical, for rebellious,) he rendered it .subject to my power. By the grace 
of Ormazd, I have reformed it completely. Says Darius the king, — that which 
has been i|. .ill of i' I have accomplished by the ^ran: of Ormazd. O people ! 
the law of Ormazd,— that having returned to you, let it not perish. Beware, lest 
ye abandon the true doctrine." Other inscriptions there are, which huve not 
yet been deciphe red. 

To this we add the following. Among the many interesting proofs of the accu- 
racy of scripture history, l ufter having been questioned,) which are furnished 
by the recent discoveries, we notice the following from Sir Henry Ruwlinson. 
The apparent contradiction between Daniel and Ibro-us incompletely reconciled. 
" Berosus state* tbnt Noboniilus, after being defeated by Cyrus, shot himself up 
in the city of Bonippa, and there .surrendered himself to Cyrus." Sir II. Kaw- 
linson reconciles these discrepancies from the cylinders, (ancient records,) 
which distinctly state that Bclshuzzar w>u lite eldtst ton of XafionUl'i*, and that 
he was governor of Babylon (and was there slain; when Cyrus look Xabonidus. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THE RELIGION OF THE DISPERSED IN EUROPE. 

The isles of the Gentiles, that is, the islands in the 
Mediterranean and vEgean seas, appear to have been 
assigned to the descendants of Japheth, and to have been 
taken possession of at an early period by them. But it 
does not appear that the continent of Europe was all in- 
cluded in the grant, and that they were restricted to that 
quarter of the globe, for in the prophecy of Noah it is 
said, " God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in 
the tents of Shem." This was fulfilled in the extension 
of Shem's descendants into the North of Asia, into Siberia 
and Tartary, and also a part of China, as it is supposed 
by some. These were regions adjoining those of Eastern 
Asia, which were assigned to Shem. The Canaanites 
were to be subject to both Shem and Japheth, which was 
fulfilled when the Israelites took possession of Canaan, 
making many of the inhabitants slaves, and selling many 
of them to the isles of the Gentiles ; and also when the 
Gauls and Romans conquered Carthage and Tyre, which 
were colonies from Canaan. When Carthage was about 
to fall into the hands of the Romans, Hannibal is said to 
have uttered these words, "Agnosco fortunam Cartha- 
ginis," — in which it is supposed he referred to the past 
life of the wicked people, the Canaanites, who colonized 
Carthage, and perhaps to some prophecy concerning it. 

There are those (among them Bishop Newton) who 



THE DISPERSED EN EUROPE. 



281 



think that the words " He shall dwell in the tents of 
Shem," should be understood as referring not to Japheth, 
but to God's dwelling in the tents of Shem when he so 
blessed him by his presence with the Shekinah of the 
ark, and by his choosing that country for his appearance 
in the flesh. 

Japheth was a highly-favored branch, since from him 
sprung the two greatest empires of the world, — the Gre- 
cian or Macedonian, and the Roman, in which the arts 
and learning were carried to the highest degree of perfec- 
tion. The descendants of Japheth also extended their 
settlements into the North of Europe, occupying all that 
country now constituting France, Germany, and Austria. 
But it is to be noted that, as they penetrated into North- 
ern Asia and dwelt in the tents of Shem, so the descend- 
ants of Ham soon passed over from Asia Minor and colo- 
nized various parts of Greece ; took the lead in arms, and 
architecture, and the priesthood; and not only mingled 
with the descendants of Japheth in the countries and 
islands of Greece and Italy bordering on the Mediterra- 
nean, but, it is believed, almost monopolized the northern 
part, being the Gauls, the Celts, the Germans, and Sax- 
on?,; and in that way became the ancestors of the English, 
the Scotch, and the Irish. It is certain that they introduced 
the religion and priesthood of the Druids, which once 
prevailed all over the North of Europe and the British 
Isles. The identity of the Druidical system and that es- 
tablished by the descendants of Hani in Assyria and In- 
difi, cannol be questioned. It is believed that some of the 
descendants <>t' Hani, probal.lv the shepherd kings, when 
driven out of Egypt, came over and settled in Greece, 
bringing with them something of the Egyptian religion 
and literature. Such being the case, it is impossible to 
distinguish between the descendants of the two brothers, 
as they were probably in after times much blended to- 



282 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



gether. As to those of Ham, through the line of Cush 
and Mmrod, we know only that Nimrod was a mighty 
hunter, deeply engaged in the daring enterprise at Babel ; 
but that his descendants, in the various countries into 
which they were scattered, have been fierce in war and 
religion, — have been the soldiers and priests, and thus 
the leaders. Homer, in his " Odyssey," speaks of Nimrod 
under the name of Orion, as a man of gigantic make, and 
always in pursuit of wild beasts. The Greeks called him 
Nebrod. Many places were called after him. He was 
worshipped under the title of Belus, at the great temple 
of Babylon, which was finished by one of the Ninuses 
some time after the confusion and dispersion. 

The Greeks and their religion had more of the ferocious 
about them than most other nations. This is ascribed in 
a great measure to the large intermixture of Nimrodism 
in that country. Originally they were called Javanites, 
after Javan, one of the sons of Japheth, who first settled 
in Greece. We know but little of the first state of Greece 
but suppose that a purer form of religion there prevailed 
than when the descendants of Ham intermixed with them, 
introducing more of the worship of the sun and other ob- 
jects of nature, or after Homer and Hesiod had mingled 
so many deities with their theology. The general name 
of the deity among the Greeks was Theoth or Theos, 
which we translate Theism or Deism. Another name was 
that used by our Lord on the cross, — El, or Eli, or Eloi, 
a name adopted in other countries. It is admitted, how- 
ever, that the early inhabitants of Greece afterwards de- 
generated and became barbarous. After a time, they and 
the nations of the East bestowed the name of barbarians 
upon each other, and used them very freely and not 
without effect. As to the early Greeks, Plato says, "They 
brought a mist upon learning, so that it was impossible to 
discover truth from them ;" therefore he sought information 



THE DISPERSED LN* EUROPE. 



2S3 



elsewhere, even from the East, from whence it was liter- 
ally true, as in the time of our Lord, " The wise men 
came from the East." Plato says the most genuine helps 
to philosophy came from those whom the Greeks called 
barbarians.* Athenagoras says that " Homer and Ilesiod 
(who lived about four hundred years before him) first 
formed the theology of the Greeks, and gave names to 
their deities. Until that time there had been no repre- 
sentations of the gods, either in painting or sculpture." 
All the gods of Greece, says one, were originally the sun. 
" The great heroes were translated to the sun, and wor- 
shipped with him." This was probably the case as soon 
as the descendants of Ham settled there, for they wor- 
shipped the sun, and Ham with him. They are called 
Ammoniaxs, and Jupiter Amnion. 

Before wo proceed to mention some of the early colo- 
nies of Greece, and the names of their leaders and times, 
we must make one remark, which is important to the 
right understanding of their history. "When their history 
was written, it always began, not with their first settle- 
ment in the different places colonized, but with their great 
ancestor in the country whence they came, and with some 
events in bis history. 

Hence it is that they declare that their first king was 
the monarch of the whole earth, or of a large part of it ; 
which was true of Noah, Ham, Ximrod, etc., who were 
called by ditferont named, according to their dialects or 
languages. 

The Greeks were sometimes called Ioiiians, and were 
supposed to be a colony from liahyloii after the dis- 
pcroton. Plutarch says, "They wero the first who led 
mankind into idolatry, by introducing the sun, moon, 

• Lord I! scon sovs that tho Greek fubles " appear like a soft whisper from 
the traditions of rnoro ancient nations, conveyed through tho Uutes of tho 
Grecians." 



284 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



and all the stars as deities." Antiochus says, " They had 
been instrncted by Joannes, one of the giant race, — ■ 
the same person who, with his associates, bnilt the tower ; 
and who, together with them, was punished by a confu- 
sion of speech." Sometimes they were called Hellenes, 
which was the same with the Ionians. 

The Greeks, or a colony of them, were sometimes called 1 
Argives, from the ark or ship Argos or Argha, thus 
tracing themselves to Noah. Sometimes they were called 
Pelasgi, from Pelasgus, another name for ISToah or Deu- 
calion. In one of the ancient hymns of Orpheus we 
have this description : 

" On a high mountain brow 
The gloomy cave gave back to light 
Godlike Pelasgus, that the race of man 
Through him might be renewed." 

Another state of Greece was that of the Spartans or 
Sparti — a word which signifies " scattered abroad." They 
are supposed to have come into Beotia with Cadmus, 
when he migrated to Thebes with the people of the dis- 
persion. ^Eschylus describes them as the posterity of 
those "whom the chance of war had spared, and who 
were scattered abroad." The term Titans or Titanians, or 
wanderers, was given to them. The great object of build- 
ing the tower was, " lest we be scattered abroad ;" hence, 
those who went abroad from Babel were called wanderers. 
The warsx of the Titans were the wars of these wanderers 
seizing on the inheritance of others. They were called 
" the giants," " the warlike." Sometimes they were called 
the Heliadae, or the offspring of the sun, — that is, of Noah 
and of Ham. The Meropes were another tribe or nation 
of ancient Greece. The author of the " Ohronicon Pas- 
chale " says, " That the Meropes were originally concerned 



TIIE DISPERSED IN EUROPE. 



2S5 



in building the tower of Babel, and were prevented by 
the confusion of their speech. On this account they 
had their name of Meropes, because their speech was di- 
vided."' Meropes was of the giant breed, and supposed 
to be the same with one of the Heraclidse. Pindar also 
speaks of the Deity ruining the Meropes — with their great 
and warlike monarch. The city of Troy, also, is spoken 
of as the city of the dispersed. 

The Colchicans of Pontus were also a superior race. 
They worshipped Prometheus as a god. The grounds 
around his temple were planted with trees, and covered 
with pavilions and fountains. It was also called para- 
dise, or by a name answering to our paradise. 

There can be no doubt that all which is said of the race 
of giants since the flood, whether in scripture or in an- 
cient history or poetry, may be traced to the warlike de- 
scendants of Ham. in the line of the mighty Nimrod; and 
that all tin- wonderful things in architecture, whether in 
Egyp* or m Greece, are to be ascribed to the daring archi- 
tects of the tow er of Babel. Poetry and romance have of 
(■our-.- i \;i_ir.Tatc(l them beyond the bounds of credibility* 
Homer and Heeiod, and even Virgil and Ovid, have con- 
tributed largely to the tradition of monsters in the human 
form, who never had existence except in the imaginations 
and b ars of man. "We do not deny that there was a 
Goliah in the time of David, and Anakims in the days 
of Mose- and .b.diua, of large Mature, but not mi huge as 
the cowardly spies represented. Men as large asOoliah 
have lived -inee hi- day ; even in our land there have 
been inoii-ter- in .-ize, with dwarfs to stand between their 
legs. There have been not only individual-, but families 
and tribe-, differing greatly in size from others of the 
human race. (J recce, ever given to the fabulous and the 
murvell..ii-. has made herself ridiculous in the eyes of the 
world by her extravagancies, which deserve to be placed 



286 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



alongside of the " Arabian Nights' Entertainment," and 
of " Tom Thumb " and "Jack the Giant-Killer." 

Some of these are worthy of consideration, because of 
their connection with history and religion. A small com- 
pany of the Titans or wanderers settled in Sicily, and 
established their bloody rites there, living on plunder. 
But let us see what has been made of it. These are the 
.Cyclops, as they were called, only three in number. 
Virgil has given an account of one in his cave : — 

" Monstrum, horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum." 

Here it is that he forges the lightning and thunder for 
Jupiter. Virgil tells us that they built the great wall 
which, in the lower regions, divided Elysium from Tar- 
tarus. 

Homer makes Ulysses visit one of them, who seizes upon 
two of his men and makes a feast of them. Of them 

" He spreads a horrid feast, 
And fierce devours them, like a mountain beast." 

Now the true history is this : The Cyclopeans were re- 
markable for their skill in architecture, in every country 
where they went, and were men of great strength. They 
builded great temples and towers, which sometimes an- 
swered for light-houses on the coast. They had a round 
window in the upper part, like an eye, such as are put in 
the gable-ends of houses to this day, and are called " ox 
eyes," from their resemblance to the eye of an ox. Vir- 
gil, speaking of Polyhemus, referring no doubt to the 
high towers he built, says, 

"Ipse arduus, altaque pulsat sidera." 

Of his works, one of the ancients says, 

" Cyclopum sacros 
Turres labore majus humano decus." 



THE DISPERSED IX EUROPE. 



287 



THE SACRED TOWERS OF THE CYCLOPS THE GREATEST WORKS 
OF HOIAK ART. 

The Scholiast, on Statius, says of their architecture: 
u Quit-quid magnitudine sua, nohile est, Cylopum manu 
dicitur fabricatum." The secret of the cave of the Cy- 
clops in Sicily was this : on a high rock, called Scilla, 
there was a temple of the Cyclopean priests, where they 
sacrificed and devoured all the strangers who were 
thrown upon that coast. Petra was the temple, and the 
dogs surrounding it were the priests; and the most agree- 
able repast to the priests was the flesh of strangers. On 
another part of the island of Sicily were the Lestrigonians, 
who were, perhaps, of the same race and character with 
the Cyclopeans — being giants in wickedness. Herod- 
otus, in who.-e day :i story was told of a race with one 
eye, literally rejects it. The Syrens, of whom Homer 
speaks in the u Odyssey," lived on the opposite coast of 
Atrica, called Campania, and were also of the race of 
I lam, through Canaan. Here, also, was a great temple 
in which women ofliciated, and sang most enchanting and 
irresistible songs, with which to ensnare and charm the 
travellers along the coast. Circe, one of them, says to 
Ulysses, 

" I nhlcsl tlic man whom music makes to .-tniy 
Near the curst coast and listen to the lay. 
1 he ground polluted floats with human tforc, 
And human ramage taints the dreadful shore. 
PI y ! fly the dangerous coast ! " 

Thero was no fiction in this description of the blood 
and gore which defiled the temples, in many parts of 
(ireece, where human victims were sacrificed. When an 
ancient writer -peaks of Saturn himself, and Ops, and 
other deities "devouring their own children," it is easily 



288 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



understood by referring to the human victims which were 
offered up to them in the temples. 

In the orgies of Bacchus and Ceres, one part of the 
ceremony was to eat the flesh with the blood. In Crete, 
at the Dionusiaca, they used to tear the flesh from the 
victim while alive. According to Ovid, most of the tem- 
ples of old were courts of justice. Thus he says of the 
goddess Ceres, 

" Prima dedit leges." 

The laws of Solon were engraved in one of the temple3 
at Athens. Proserpine, with Minos, and Radamanthus, 
were condemned to the shades below, as internal inquisi- 
tors. The priests in the temple were sometimes called 
Furise, wherefore an ancient writer speaks of "Proserpine 
among the furies.": Herodotus speaks of a Prutanion in 
Achaia, from which none ever returned who were caught 
by the priests. The Harpies were also a college of priests 
in Bithynia. On account of their cruelty they were driven 
out of the country. They were styled " The Dogs of Jove." 
Some of the priests in the ancient temples, as in one at 
Megara, were celebrated for wrestling and boxing with 
the Ccestus, and obtained victims by challenging and 
even forcing strangers to the combat. We are told that 
this even reached America. When the Spaniards came 
to the Western world they found a custom resembling 
this. The person about to be sacrificed must engage in 
battle and be slain. The word campus or campi, was the 
space around the temple where the battle was fought, and 
the combatants were called campio. We read also of a 
monster called campi, who was said to have fifty heads of 
fifty different beasts. This was believed to be a college of 
fifty cruel priests, who lived on human victims. The old 
story of a monster or dragon which covers fifty acres, is 



THE DISPERSED IN" EUROPE. 



289 



interpreted to mean a campus or enclosure containing fifty 
acres around one of the temples. 

We may, in another way, account for the marvellous ex- 
ploits and travels and reformations. ascribed to the hero- 
gods of old, in Greece especially. The actions of a whole 
tribe or colony are ascribed to the great leader of the 
same. In scripture, the tribes are called after their 
twelve heads, as Judah, Dan, Reuben, etc., hundreds of 
years after their patriarchs were dead. The actions of the 
tribes were credited to the individuals. Wonderful are 
the accounts given of the travels, conquests, reformations, 
achievements, and instructions of Osiris, Perseus, Dionu- 
sii-, Bacchus, Hercules, and others. The jonrneyings and 
works of these persons would require hundreds of years, 
and by many persons associated together, in order to their 
accomplishment; and many of these are so much alike, 
according to the tradition, that we must suppose them to 
be the same characters under different names, according 
to the diversity of tongues after the confusion at Babel; 
Noah answers to the description of the leading ones ; 
and his sons and their children, especially Hani and Cnsh 
and Ximrod, will represent all the subsequent heroes 
which make such a figure in ancient history and mythol- 
ogy. But then, we must connect with them the colonies 
which they «ettle< 1, in order to justify these feats said to have 

1 n performed by them. And as to the accounts given of 

the marches and conquests of Bacchus, Hercules, Scsos- 
tris, Seiniramis, and others, we must remember who were 
the nations overrun and subdued by them. They were 
pettj tribes, under patriarchs called kings, like the nu- 
merous petty states of (iie. ee in their infancy, and some- 
what like the petty tribes of Africa at this day. What 
WOK the kings occupying Canaan in the time of Abra- 
ham, when with his three hundred servants he overcame 
so many ; or in the time of Joshua, when Adonibezek had 
19 



290 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



more than eighty at one time, captives and mutilated. 
Nimrod may have been a mighty hunter, like some great 
chieftain in our American forests, because there were so 
many Avild beasts in the uncleared lands of the East, and 
of course a sparse population of human beings, as is al- 
ways the case with the savage or hunting state of man. 
Europe, with its numerous British and Mediterranean 
and ^Egean isles, and immense sea-coast, was, of all the 
quarters -of the globe, most favorable for multiplied colo- 
nies and independent states, and pirates and robbers, which 
would furnish material for extravagant fiction and wilder 
poetry. Herodotus tells us that, even in his time, in one 
tract along the Hellespont and Euxine, there were thirty 
different nations. To this let it be added, that learned 
men believe some of the great heroes of the early times 
to have been religious leaders who made wars against 
opposing sects. The descendants of Ham, — the Titans, 
the worshippers of the sun, — and of Ham or Jupiter Am- 
nion, were especially zealous for their own, and intolerant 
of others. One of these numerous heroes, going by the 
name of Hercules, signalized himself by waging war 
against the descendants of Japheth, (who were the Arkites 
of their time,) and with his followers made conquests in 
the Mediterranean, even in the British isles, establishing 
the worship of Ammon. 

The history of the Northern tribes of Europe, both 
civil and religious, is less known, by reason of their inte- 
rior position and remoteness from the Mediterranean. 
"We have already said that the Cushites or Scythians 
gradually encroached upon the Javanites, the descendants 
of Japheth, and if they did not drive them out of that 
region, yet became the nobles and priests, and established 
the Druidical worship — the same with the Buddhism of 
India. England, Scotland, and Ireland, and all the islands 
which cluster around them, were brought under the Dru- 



THE DISPERSED IX EUROPE. 



201 



idical faith and worship. We have already quoted from 
their wild poems concerning the deluge, and Woden, and 
Ceridwen. Even to the days of Ossian there has been a 
succession of romantic Druidical poets, whose works have 
been read with interest by the literati and the religious. 
With all their extravagance, they hear good testimony to 
the Bible history. Of their temples, towers, caverns, 
cromlechs, and mounds, we have already spoken. Of the 
philosophic religions of Europe we shall say nothing 
now, as these will come under consideration when we 
treat of the philosophers in a subsequent chapter. 



CHAPTER XX. • 

ON THE RELIGION OF THE DISPERSED IN AFRICA. 

"We come now to what is often called " Degraded Afri- 
ca." Many think that the malediction of Noah on Canaan 
the son of Ham, for the irreverence shown hy the father 
towards Noah, was designed to entail degradation and 
slavery on the descendants of Ham, in Africa. Others 
can see nothing but a prophecy of judgment on Canaan, 
which was fulfilled in the destruction, or captivity or ban- 
ishment of the wicked Canaanites ; and therefore sup- 
pose that Canaan must have participated at least in the 
father's irreverence. 

Traditions and conjectures have ever abounded among 
the Jewish rabbis and Christian fathers on this subject. 
We shall not enter on the discussion. Certain it is that 
all the descendants of Ham were not visited with servi- 
tude on account of their father's sin. Cush, one of the 
sons of Ham, Nimrod's grandfather, laid the foundation 
of two mighty empires, Assyrian and Medo-Persian ; to 
say nothing of the Senthian or Scythian, which preceded 
them. Their descendants were, and are to this day, the 
masters of the world, — for the English, French, German, 
and Prussian, besides the inhabitants of the United States, 
are descended from them. 

A large portion of South and Middle Africa — that sup- 
posed to be settled by Phut, one of the sons of Ham— has 
indeed ever been the seat of the slave-trade ; but so have 



THE DISPERSED IX AFRICA. 



293 



other parts of Europe and Asia, as all history testifies. 
The slave-markets on the Mediterranean were supplied 
with captives, taken in Avar and piracy, from all quarters 
of the ancient world, which were settled hy the descend- 
ants from all the sons of Noah. Even in Scythia slaves 
so abounded, that on one occasion they rose in rebellion 
against their masters. " For a time," says Herodotus, 
" they fought them with swords and spears, and sought 
to subdue them, but found it hard ; when one said, 
• While we thus fight them, they think themselves our 
equals ; let us lay aside the sword and use whips, as their 
masters.' This was successful." A rather improbable 
story, however, like some others told by Herodotus. 

Those from Africa were sometimes preferred as slaves, 
by the rich and great of Greece and Italy, to those of any 
other country. If they were the same amiable race as at 
present, this is not to be wondered at. Still, in the time 
of Horace there was a reproach resting on them, whether 
for their color, their state of slavery, or some other 
cause, I know not. 

•■ .\K-''iit.-rn 'pii rodit amii.-utn 
Aut non defcndit alio culpantc 
Hie nigerest ; Hunc tn Roiuane caTeto." 

One thing is certain, that they were not ashamed of their 
color, t'-ir the great statue of Bfemnon in Egypt, supposed 
to Ik- the same with Buddha in Hindustan, is very large 
and very black. Not only this, but in Hindustan the 
statin- i if l!u<l-llia is more frequently black than of any 
other color, though it is to be found of all the shades 
of color among men ; thus showing the universality of 
Buddhism in the ancient world. It certainly once pre- 
vailed through Africa, though not at its first settlement. 
Misraim, the sun of Ham, settled in Egypt, and brought 
with him, no doubt, a purer form of the religion of Noah. 



294 



.THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Phut, it is thought, settled in what was called Ethiopia 
and Abyssinia, though some think that he afterwards re- 
moved to Hindostan, and became the Buddha of that 
country. Misraim was worshipped under the name of 
Ethiops, and was supposed by some to have been the 
first king and god of Egypt, from which name Ethiopia 
was derived. 

But this first form of religion was afterwards changed 
by the incursion of the shepherd kings from Asia — the 
descendants of Ham, through the line of Cush and Nim- 
rod — who overran Egypt, and assimilated the religious 
worship and gods more to the pattern of those at Babylon. 
Herodotus and Manetho tell us of two descents upon 
Egypt by the shepherd kings, who drove out numbers of 
the inhabitants, and enslaved the rest. After holding the 
country in possession for a long time after each incursion, 
perhaps five hundred years in all, they were driven out 
by the natives. It is supposed that Joseph came into 
Egypt not long after the expulsion of the first race of 
shepherd kings, and was followed by his father and 
brethren after some years. 

The second race of usurpers oppressed both the Israel- 
ites and the natives, and probably made them both unite 
in building the great pyramids, and the other wonders of 
Egypt. The shepherd kings were called Auretse, from 
the word Aur, the sun, which they worshipped. They 
settled first in the upper part of the Delta, the richest 
portion of Egypt. This was the region from whence, 
after building a city called Abaris, for their defence, 
they were driven out. Its pastures were so fine, and 
the climate such, that sheep are said to have had lambs 
twice a year, and yielded two fleeces of wool each 
year. This was the part of Egypt that was given to 
Jacob and his sons, for themselves, their flocks and 
herds. In the providence of God it had been vacated 



THE DISPERSED EN AFRICA. 



295 



in time for their reception. A passage from one of the 
hooks of Moses concerning it deserves some explanation. 
A reason assigned for its selection was, that every shep- 
herd was an abomination to the Egyptians, which might 
be easily understood if the worst part of the land had 
been assigned to Jacob ; but Pharaoh desired Joseph to 
choose the best part of the land of Egypt for him. The 
explanation of the passage is, either that shepherds were 
an abomination to the Egyptians because of the ill- 
treatment they had received from the shepherd kings, 
who, doubtless, had large flocks, or that the Egyptians, 
who at that time offered no animal sacrifices to their 
gods, or only certain kinds, with handfuls of corn, frank- 
incense, and myrrh, held in detestation the sacrifices of 
cattle and sheep which the shepherd kings had been ac- 
customed to offer from their large flocks and herds. 
Although Jacob had been accustomed to make such oft'er- 
inge to Jehovah, yet we are told that during all their res- 
idence, in Kgypt the Israelites never dared to do it. This 
explain- the demand of Moses that they might be allow- 
ed to go three days' journey into the wilderness, that is, 
to Arabia, in order to sacrifice; pleading that if they 
should saeritice the abominations of the Egyptians, — that 
i-. rattle, — the Egyptians would stone them. Although 
afterwards, and for a long time, according to Ezckiel, 
Egyptians "became a base kingdom," "the basest of 
kingdoms," and " without a prince," — that is, a prince of 
her own, — yet in the time of .Joseph they became great, 
probably when he had the chief place in the kingdom. 
Though Pharaoh was the leading king, there were others, 
fur the country was divided into many petty kingdoms. 
It was at that time in Egypt as in Asia, and man\ other 
countries : 

" In Asia Ngna volnptissima sunt 
I'rbcs singula; sws ) inherit n-ges." 



296 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



They were, however, all in confusion, as in the petty 
kingdoms of Canaan and the small tribes of Africa, and 
in Europe in feudal times ; but Joseph, availing himself 
of the opportunity furnished him by the seven years of 
plenty and the seven years of famine, got possession for 
Pharaoh of all the land, and cattle, and money of Egypt, 
and made the people subject to him, removing them from 
one end of the country to the other, changing their cities, 
and thus preventing all associations for regaining their 
licentious independence. Such was the case in other 
countries, according to ancient history. 

In relation to the shepherd kings, who took possession 
of Egypt at an early period and held it so long, the fol- 
lowing passage from Manetho, the earliest of the Egyptian 
historians, will interest the reader : " We had formerly a 
king named Timmaus, in whose reign, I know not why, it 
pleased God to visit us with a blast of his displeasure ; 
when, on a sudden, there came upon the nation a large 
body of obscure people from the East : with great bold- 
ness they invaded the land, and took it without opposition. 
The chiefs of our people they reduced to obedience, and 
treated them in the most cruel manner ; set fire to their 
towns, and overturned their temples." He then gives an 
account of six of their kings, " who in succession were 
always in a state of hostility with the natives, and en- 
deavored, if possible, to root out the very name of Egyp- 
tian." The whole body of this people were called Hukos, 
that is, " royal shepherds." Manetho also refers to the 
subsequent settlement of Joseph and the Israelites, and 
their removal. That the first shepherds were fire-wor- 
shippers is evident from a saying among them in their wor- 
ship : "111 Alia; Alia Ouac, Oubar Alia." That is, "The 
Sun is God ; the great Lord Aur is God." 

In relation to the architecture of Egypt, Sir William 
Jones, in speaking of India, says, " The remains of ar- 



THE DISPERSED IN AFRICA. 



297 



chitecture and sculpture in India seem to prove an 
early intercourse between that country and Africa. 
Many indubitable facts may induce no ill-grounded opin- 
ion, that Ethiopia, — that is, Asiatic Ethiopia, — Africa, 
and Hindostan were peopled or colonized by the same 
extraordinary race, that is, the descendants of Ham, 
through Cush and Nimrod, who overran India, overpow- 
ering the descendants of Shem, and took possession of 
Egypt, driving out or enslaving the descendants of Mis- 
raim, the oldest of the sons of Ham." An ancient tradi- 
tion also says, that the Chaldeans, — the descendants of 
Cush, — formerly invaded Egypt, and overcame the priests 
and worshippers of Canobus, their ancient king and god, 
changed its religion, and altered its annals. In the time 
of Joseph and also of Moses, we know that they wor- 
shipped the sun under the name of On. In relation to 
their annals, — the dynasties of their kings and gods, — 
the utmost confusion exists. Their first kings were 
called gods; the second race were called demi-gods. As 
to the immense period of their past existence, that is all 
fable. We have nothing reliable till we come to the god 
of the ark and the deluge, and then the resemblance of 
their history to that of all the nations around is easily es- 
tablished. Their Isis ami Osiris are believed by many to 
be the second father and mother of the renewed race of 
men. thr male and female deities of the ark, called by so 
many different name.- in different countries, according to 
the languages thereof. A usonius says, evidently referring 
to Noah, " Ogygia (that is, JJeotia) me Bacehum vocat ;" 
" Osvrin Egypt us putat ;" '• My.-i, I'hanacein." These 
were oidy a few of the various names given to the hero- 
god of the ark. 

The names of the kings of Egypt were blended with 
their gods; Pharaoh, the common name of their kings, 
is the same with I'hree, or Cod. Tradition, in Asia, hay.- 



298 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



that Nanash or Noah was at first a mortal, but became a 
god while he was in the ark. 

We have before seen, from the Orphic hymns and oth- 
erwise, that the Egyptians had some idea of a Supreme 
Deity, the creator of gods and men and all things ; but 
they did not like to retain this God in their knowledge, 
and began to worship the deities of the ark, and the sun, 
moon, and stars, as emanations and parts of the great 
Deity. Herodotus tells us that they paid no religious 
honor to heroes as the Grecians did ; that they told him, 
when visiting Egypt, that their images were only the im- 
ages of great and noble men, but who were far from being 
gods ; that, at the first, God reigned over Egypt. He 
speaks of visiting the tomb of one at Sais, " whom I con- 
sider it impious to divulge on such an occasion." He 
tells us of "a great feast at Butastis, where more wine is 
consumed than in all the rest of the year," seven hundred 
thousand persons being present. At this sacrifice they 
all beat themselves violently : " But for whom they thus 
beat themselves it were impious to divulge." The Egyp- 
tians, after a time, it is well known, began to worship 
every thing in nature, whether in the " heavens above, or 
in the earth beneath." Pan, or all things in nature, was 
their deity. Not a plant or flower of the garden, or 
grain of the fields, or tree of the forest, or fowl of the 
air, or beast, or reptile, which had the power of propagat- 
ing its kind, but was a part of the great Creator. Juve- 
nal, in one of his satires, speaks of them as adoring all 
which grew in their gardens, their fields, and their rivers. 
Especially did they adore rivers as deities, — the river 
Mle being the chief river-god because the instrument of 
so much fertility, and especially because its source was 
unknown to them. 

The Egyptians, like some other nations, divided then 
gods into two sexes — sometimes combined them into one 



TIIE DISPERSED IN AFRICA. 



299 



hermaphrodite. In the mysteries of Egypt, all the facts 
belonging to the ark, the deluge, and Noah's family are 
celebrated in the most imposing manner, as we have 
already stated in a previous chapter. 

Their religion having been, heretofore, so wrapped up in 
their unintelligible hieroglyphics, has been less understood 
than that of some other nations. The information gotten 
by some of the ancient philosophers of Greece and Rome, 
while residing in Egypt and searching for knowledge, 
from the priests, has heretofore been the chief source of 
our acquaintance with the Egyptian theology. The fa- 
mous Rosetta stone, dug up by Xapoleon Bonaparte's sol- 
diers while in Egypt, (now in the British Museum,) with 
an inscription in Greek, in Egyptian hieroglyphics and 
phonetic symbols, is proving a great help to the decipher- 
ing of the hieroglyphics which have so long shut up the 
Egyptian literature and theology from the world. The 
discovery of more of the ancient temples in Upper Egypt, 
with their inscriptions, will add something valuable, it is 
hoped, to our knowledge of the Egyptian antiquities. 
The bunting of the Alexandrian library in the time of Ju- 
lius Ca'sar, and the ruthless destruction of so many others 
by the Saracens in the tenth century, ha- doubtless lost 
to the world much of ancient lore which can never be re- 
stored. And yet we doubt not that the famous school of 
the Christian fathers in Egypt, reared over the very 
aslio of the ei.nlhiL'i'atcd library, has done much t<> recov- 
er many ancient fragments of literature; while the es- 
tablishment of the Christian church all along the north- 
ern coast of Africa, converted one of the most barbarous 
and ferocious parts of the pagan world into a comparative 
paradise for many centuries. Tin? history of the abomina- 
tions of the idolatry of Carthage alone is enough to stag- 
ger all belief, were it not too well established by un- 
doubted, authority, and continued by the accounts of other 



300 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



parts of the pagan world. The cruel rites of Moloch, prac- 
tised in Carthage, were only a transfer to that place of the 
abominations of the Valley of Hinnom, near Jerusalem, 
by the Canaanites who colonized it. In each place chil- 
dren were snatched from their mothers' arms, and thrown 
into the wide-open mouth of the burning, blazing, insati- 
able god. Of this we shall have more to say in another 
place. 

The Egyptians themselves, even after the introduc- 
tion of the worship of the sun by the shepherd kings, 
were for some time behind the Greeks and Romans in the 
abominations of their worship. Mr. Bryant says, " The 
ancient Chaldeans, from whence the shepherd kings re- 
ceived their religion, would have thought themselves and 
their deities injured by a comparison with them. They 
doubtless were guilty of idolatry in worshipping the Su- 
preme Deity under any resemblance, — yet there are de- 
grees even in idolatry ; they were not so gross in their 
conceptions or worship as the Greeks and Romans. Their 
god had no resemblance to Bacchus, the god of grapes ; 
or to Mulciber, the blacksmith. There are passages which 
show that, in the time of Abraham's visit to Egypt, there 
were evidences of the true religion. In the time of Joseph 
the same may be said. His marriage with a daughter of 
the priest of the sun, and the favors shown to him by Pha- 
raoh, and the respectful language used in relation to the 
God of Joseph, is a proof of this. Although the prophets 
are so full of denunciations against Egypt on account of 
its increasing corruption of morals and the abominations 
of their idolatry, yet we find kind reference to them, and 
favoring decrees in regard to them, at an earlier period. 
Thus in Deuteronomy it is written, " Thou shalt not abhor 
an Egyptian, because thou wast a stranger in the land of 
Egypt." And while the Moabites and Ammonites must 
not enter into the congregation, even to the tenth genera- 



THE DISPERSED IN AFRICA. 



301 



tion, the children of the Egyptians might he admitted in 
the third generation. 

To the foregoing account of the religion of ancient 
Egyjrt, I subjoin a communication touching its present 
theology and worship. It is from the pen of my brother, 
Bishop Payne, than whom no man living is better quali- 
fied to afford reliable information. 

My Dear Bishop : — I reply, as soon as I have been able 
to command time, to your kind favor of the 11th inst. It 
gives me great pleasure to assist you in the work which 
you have in hand ; especially as it affords me an oppor- 
tunity to give some reliable account of what has been very 
little understood, — the mythology of the pagan Africans. 
You will share in the surprise I felt on the discovery of 
the resemblance (if this system to that of the heathen in all 
ages, and to some of the great truths of revelation. 

I will give the account of this very much in the lan- 
guage in which I received it from an aged Greho deya, or 
demon-man: "In the beginning, God (or Xyesoa, — ?iye, 
man, *nn, ithiding. — very like Jehovah, the Eternal One) 
lived on earth among men. Then there was no sickness, 
no sorrow, no death. After a time, however, Xyesoa let 
fall from his hands We, witchcraft, — or that which causetb 
death. A woman got hold of this : soon a death followed. 
Men, dismayed, went to Xyesoa to a.-k the cau.-c. lie re- 
plied, that ' Wi' had fallen from him, and was in posses- 
sion of a woman. She had caused the death.' lie told 
them, moreover, that 'he would now direct them to a test 
by which they could ascertain tin- guilt or innocence of the 
woman, and others suspected of like crime.' He showed 
tin in the gidu-tree, and directed them to make an infu- 
sion of the hark ami administer it to the woman. If guilty, 
it would cause her death ; if innocent, she would vomit it 
and escape. The woman drank the mixture, and died. 



302 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Before this, however, she had succeeded in conveying this 
mysterious We to her children. Thus sickness and death 
overspread the world. Men became so corrupt that Nye- 
soa told them he could no longer dwell among them ; 
and he withdrew to heaven. Before leaving, however, he 
assured them he should always take an interest in their 
affairs, and that he would leave among them a class of 
men through whom they could communicate with him. 
This class are the deyabo, or demon-men." 

In this narrative we have the professedly divine origin 
of gidu, or " sassa-wood," reminding one of "the waters 
of jealousy," and used all through Central Africa as a test 
of witchcraft and other crimes ; — the account, so nearly 
scriptural, of God's dwelling with men, the introduction 
of evil by woman, and the deyabo, representing almost ex- 
actly Balaam and the false prophets and oracles of all 
heathen countries ; — the idea being, in all these cases, that 
the daimon of the Greeks, — -the Ku of the Greboes, — is 
sent by ITyesoa, or the Supreme Being ; and hence the 
responses or directions of those acting under the influence 
of these spirits have a divine sanction. The senseless gre- 
grees or fetishes, therefore, made of horns, wood, or stone, 
are as potent for good or evil as the nicely chiselled statue 
of Jupiter, or the image of the great goddess Diana, which 
fell down from heaven. 

Like the Greeks and Romans, too, the Greboes deify 
their departed friends ; assigning them relatively the same 
position in the future world which they had occupied in 
this. Thus the warrior is the warrior Ku, or demon, ex- 
erting a powerful influence over war, and to be propitiated 
by offerings in time of war, or when it is pending. The 
trader from the spirit-land exerts an influence over trade, 
and must be propitiated when it languishes. The rich man, 
who had his slaves to wait on him when living, must still 
have them when dead. And therefore, in the kingdoms of 



THE DISPERSED IN AFRICA. 



303 



Dahomey and Ashanti, slaves are killed at the death of the 
masters, to accompany and wait on them in the future world. 

The spirits of the departed (in order to eat the food 
offered to them, and for other purposes) enter into the 
bodies of animals, which for this reason become sacred. 
Tims monkeys and even snakes are, in particular places 
and circumstances, the objects of religious offerings and fear. 
In strange opposition, however, to the view of the condi- 
tion of the departed, it is a very prevalent idea that after 
a certain time the spirits of the departed return to the 
world in the bodies of new-born children, who, accord- 
ingly, by the direction of a deya, receive their names. 
There is still another class of Ku, or demons, with whose 
origin no one professes to be acquainted. Thus, in par- 
ticular Localities, — generally a remarkable rock or grove, — 
they are said to have lived from time immemorial, and to 
h j i v i * been the objects of worship. Of the idols of the Af- 
ricans, it is only the larger, — having, in a few cases, some 
resemblance to a human being, — that are supposed to have 
a A'", demon or .-pint-, in them. The smaller kind, worn 
about tin: person, are supposed to po.-se.-- only a sort of 
magical influence communicated by the deya or demon- 
man win; prepared them. 

In the office of bodiii, theoretically the highest among 
the people, are many remarkable resemblances to that of 
the. It wish high priest. The office is hereditary in a par- 
ticular family. When an incumbent is likely to die, the 
ringofotliee is taken from his ankle and put upon that of 
Borne member of his family, until an oracle is consulted to 
know who i- to succeed. ( >neof the older members of the 
family is generally chosen. A day is appointed for his 
inaugural ion ; the people all assemble; the heads of fam- 
ilies now approach and give, in turn, the newly-elected 
bodia a solemn charge. During his administration the 
seasons arc to be propitious ; trade is to flourish ; witch- 



304 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



craft and war are to be kept far away. An animal or he- 
goat is brought for sacrifice. The proper officer taking np 
the animal, invokes ISTyesoa, (Grod,) the spirits of the dead, 
and other Kioi demons. The animal is killed by being 
thrown violently against the ground, without mutilation. 
After being thus killed, the throat is cut, and the blood is 
sprinkled upon the bodia's ear, finger, and toe ; also upon 
the door-posts of his house and public idols within. He 
is then washed and anointed with oil. He remains in this 
anointing three days, and then takes possession of the pub- 
lic house prepared for him. That house is always of a long 
shape, unlike others ; it is called tai-Tcai, the anointed 
house. In it are kept the public idols which are to be fed 
by the bodia, and a fire must be kept ever burning. In 
this house alone can the bodia eat and sleep, except when 
he may visit a parent town, or the one from which his peo- 
ple have been colonized. When he goes with his people, 
as is usual, to work on the farms, he must only drink wa- 
ter in the public highway. He may never become intox- 
icated, nor be guilty of unchastity. He may never weep 
for the dead, nor take part in a burial, nor take food in 
town while a corpse lies unburied in it. He has a vote on 
all public measures ; his house is a place of refuge where 
no one may be molested, whatever crime he may have 
committed. When the bodia, or his chief wife (also a sa- 
cred person) dies, no mourning is allowed, and they are 
buried at night. In case he has died by gidu, or sassa- 
wood, his body must be buried beneath a running stream 
of water. 

I have not been able to find among the Greboes, or their 
pagan neighbors, the idea of sacrificing as atonement for 
sin. Their offerings are avowedly to feed their demons. 
When these demons are said to be angry, and to inflict or 
threaten calamities, the reason always assigned by the de- 
mon-men is, that they are hungry ; or that they are dis- 



THE DISPERSED IN AFRICA. 305 

pleased at some violation of political, social, or hereditary 
riglits of families or individuals. Sometimes it is because 
they themselves have been killed unjustly by gklu or sas- 
sa-wood. And vet the idea of moral purity seems to linger 
among them. This appears in the law of temperance and 
chastity for the bodia, and for the tibawaa, the next officer 
in authority to him ; also, in the formal ceremony to pu- 
rify the land from kaiut, or pollution after war ; and the 
trial of all married women, to ascertain if they have been 
guilty of unchastity, when their husbands are going to 
war. The rite of circumcision is practised by the Man- 
durgos, Foulahs, the large Mohammedan tribes of Central 
Africa, and some pagan tribes in their neighborhood, or 
who have been brought under their influence. The right 
of primogeniture is everywhere acknowledged among the 
Africans, securing to the first-bora son great authority 
during the life of the father, and succession to his full 
ri ltI 1 1=> at death. There is a great prejudice against twins 
throughout the country, on the ground that " the elder 
will serve the younger." 

( )n the part of the coast near the equator there is a prac- 
ticc which seems to point to infant baptism. The new- 
born bahe is laid on a mat, in the centre of the village or 
town, and the citizens go in turn to welcome it to their 
society, ami throw water upon it. 

Hoping that these facts may answer your purpose, and 
praying for God's blessing upon all your efforts for his 
glory, — I remain, my dear Bishop, 
Very respectfully and truly 

Your Friend and Son in the Gospel, 

John Paynk. 

20 



306 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



APPENDIX. 

Since writing the foregoing chapter, I have examined 
all that the Rawlinsons, Wilkinson, and Hardwic have 
communicated to the world of their researches in Egypt, 
and find what I have stated abundantly confirmed. They 
unite in testifying that Egypt is no longer to be regarded 
as the land of useless ruins, and of enigmas not to be 
solved, but of sculptured monuments teaching ancient his- 
tory and science. The walls, platforms, pillars, and door- 
posts of their temples are covered, within and without, 
with explanatory and historic pictures which the learned 
are deciphering. ISTo colossus is so great, no amulet so 
small, but has the name of its owner and some account 
of it engraved thereon. The earliest sacred books of 
Egypt were those called "The Books of Hermes" — the 
ancient Mercury and scribe of the gods, according to 
their tradition. Even in the time of Clement of Alexan- 
dria, they were carried about in the temple of Isis by the 
priests in solemn procession. The)' treated on various sub- 
jects, — religion, philosophy, sacrifices, medicine, astronomy, 
etc. One of them yet remains, but that only in fragments. 
It is entitled " The Book of the Dead." In it are references 
to the times of the Pharaohs, and to funeral ceremonies. 

Mr. Hardwic says, " It, is the same with the Egyptian 
as with the Hindoo; a vague idea of the unity of God 
lingered in the background of his metaphysical system 
long after it had ceased to have any practical effect. 
Fascinated by the mysterious powers and processes of 
nature, he abandoned the ancient faith in God, and bow- 
ed down in adoration to the world above, beneath, and 
around him." Still, at times he would speak of a "Great 
Builder," a " Creator of the universe," a " Creator self- 
created," a " Soul of the sun," a " father and mother of 
the gods ;" but gradually the " bright memory of one 



THE DISPERSED IX AFRICA. 



307 



only God faded from the human spirit, and his functions 
were ascribed to a succession of subordinate divinities 
which constituted the objects of Egyptian worship." Na- 
ture was the highest god of the philosophic priests, while 
the people brought their offerings to some one or other 
of the various powers of nature in the form of some im- 
age or idol of the deity. Animal worship prevailed in 
the highest degree in Egypt, because the powers of nature 
were seen in them. Plutarch, who endeavored to make 
the best of their religion, nevertheless says, "The greater 
part of the Egyptians, by adoring the animals themselves 
as gods, have tilled their ritual with subjects of laughter 
and opprobrium." 

Animal sacrifices were offered up in Egypt, says Hard- 
wic, during all its historic period ; but it was done out of 
fear of the hostility of their gods, and to avert their an- 
ger. After a time, however, cows and heifers were ex- 
cepted, as being sacred to their god Apis. To offer them 
was to offer what Moses called "the abomination of the 
Egyptians," — that is, it was an abomination to sacrifice 
them. The Egyptians, like all other ancient pagans, sac- 
rificed much to the manes or spirits of their ancestors. 
Especially did they show piety to their parents in this 
way. With many funeral ceremonies they dedicated their 
hearts to their parents, as to the " authors of their bodies." 

As to a future state, they certainly believed in the im- 
mortality of the soul ; but when Herodotus says they 
were the first who taught it, we inu.-t take his explanation 
in order to understand his meaning. "They were also the 
first to broach the immortality <>t the soul, and that when 
the body dies it enters into the form of an animal which 
is born at the moment, thence pacing on from one animal 
into another until it has circled through all the creatures 
which tenant the earth, the water, and the air, after which 
it enters again into a human frame and is born anew. 



308 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



The whole period of the transmigration is (they say) three 
thousand years. There are Greek writers, some of an ear- 
lier, some of a later date, who have borrowed this doctrine 
from the Egyptians and put it forward as their own." It 
was, therefore, the doctrine of transmigration, — the mode 
of immortality, — they taught first, and not the existence 
of the soul after the death of the body, which was a uni- 
versal belief. 

They were also much given to astronomy. Their chief 
divinities, says a writer of the first century, were the 
seven planets and the twelve signs of the Zodiac. With 
the figure and motion of the earth and the planets it is 
believed they were much better acquainted than many of 
the moderns suppose ; and Moses himself, being learned 
" in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," may also have had 
better views on this subject than are imputed to him, al- 
though natural philosophy and astronomy were not among 
the objects of God's revelation to him. 

As to their knowledge of the fall and man's corruption, 
however long they may have retained correct traditions of 
it, we in vain look for any evidence of a proper sense of 
it in their rituals. There are no confessions of innate de- 
pravity in their prayers, no appeals for mercy to the 
great Judge. Theirs was the religion of the Pharisee, — a 
boasting of self-righteousness. In one of their books there 
is a form of self-justification in view of the judgment after 
death, consisting of thirty-six disavowals of sin, the first 
of which is as follows : " I have neither clone any sin, nor 
omitted any duty." The rest are denials of all kinds of 
special acts. In embalming the dead bodies also, the 
embalmer says, in the name of the dead person, "If I 
have committed any fault during my life, either in eating 
or drinking, it has not been done on my own account, but 
on account of these," pointing to the chest containing the 
entrails. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



ON THE CANAAN ITES AND ANIMAL SACRIFICES. 

Thk land of Judea or Palestine, though set apart for 
the Israelites who descended from Shem, and according 
to God's command taken possession of hy Abraham, and 
held for them by Isaac and Jacob until the removal of 
the latter into Egypt, was chiefly occupied by the de- 
scendants of Canaan. The scriptural account of Canaan 
is as follows: Noah, having planted a vineyard and drank 
of the juice of the grape, became intoxicated — whether 
from ignorance of its power to produce this effect, or some 
other cause, is matter of conjecture. While in this con- 
dition, Ham, one of his sons, is supposed to have been 
guilty of some irreverence toward him ; while the other 
tun, Shem and Japheth, sought as far as possible to con- 
coal their father's shame. That Ham was really guilty is 
nowhere stated, but is inferred from what followed. It is 
Written, that when Noah awoke from his wine, and knew 
what his younger son — or, as it is sometimes rendered, 
little son — had done unto him, he pronounced a prophecy, 
nnder the inspiration of God's Spirit, in relation to the 
fnture history of his descendants, saying, " Cnrscd be 
Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be unto his breth- 
ren. Messed he the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan 
shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he 
shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; ami Canaan shall be his 
servant." 



310 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



From the fact that the name of Ham is not mentioned 
in the prophecy, and the one who offered the indignity to 
Noah is called " his younger or little son," and that all the 
curses were uttered against Canaan, it has been supposed 
that Canaan had done something offensive, though it is 
not mentioned by the historian ; and that the servitude 
prophesied was confined to that branch of the family of 
Noah. Others, in order to avoid this conclusion, propose 
an addition to the words of Moses, and instead of reading 
"Cursed be Canaan," say it should be "Cursed be Ham, the 
father of Canaan," so as to include any of Ham's descend- 
ants ; for the prophecy referred to nations yet to be born 
of Noah. Some there are who, losing sight of Canaan as 
mentioned in the prophecy, are disposed to think that the 
weight of the curse rests, and was designed to rest, upon 
those of Ham's descendants who in time were found in 
the interior of Africa, and of a dififerent or darker color 
than the rest of mankind. If these were the only tribes 
of the human family who had ever been in bondage, and 
we were justified in so altering the sacred text as to make 
it read " Ham, the father of Canaan," there would be 
more plausibility in making this portion of the human 
family the special objects of the prophecy. But the en- 
slaving of the human species has ever prevailed in many 
other portions of the world, and in some of them, most 
probably, before the trade began in Africa, and before 
the hot sun, arid sands, and burning air of that country 
had done their part toward impressing the darker hue 
iipon the race. Large portions of Europe and Asia were 
settled before the interior or South of Africa, the negro 
country, could have been settled ; and the slave-trade was 
going on at a very early period in each of these countries. 
It is supposed that Joseph was sold to the Phoenician 
merchants, between five and six hundred years after the 
deluge ; but he was a descendant of the favored Shem, 



ANIMAL SACRIFICES. 



311 



and from the land of Canaan. History informs us that 
at an early period there were marts or slave-markets in 
many of the islands and cities of Greece, and throughout 
the Mediterranean, where immense numbers of persons, 
who were made captives in war or otherwise, were offered 
for sale. Wherever there was war the slave-trade existed, 
from a very early period, Now Asia Minor and Greece, 
which were settled by the descendants of all three of the 
sons of Noah, were the scenes of the earliest wars and the 
densest population. Cush and Canaan, two of the sons of 
Ham, settled in Asia ; while Misraiin and Phut went to Af- 
rica, where it is probable that (until the last few centuries, 
since the trade between the coast of Africa and America 
has been carried on) far more of the descendants of Cush 
and Canaan have been sold into bondage than of Misraiin 
and Phut, because of the more numerous wars of Europe 
and Asia. 

Had it been the case, as some have perhaps supposed, 
that African negroes had from the first supplied the slave- 
markets of Greece and Italy, what numbers would have 
been found in these countries, during the whole period 
of their history, even to this day. During the two or 
three centuries of the African slave-trade with America, 
how many millions have been settled among us and are 
with us? But we read no such account of millions of this 
race in Kurope and .Via Minor. We may further infer 
the early and extensive existence of slavery in Asia — 
and that not of the negro race only, if at all — from the 
language <>f tin- Decalogue, in which God, from Mount 
Sinai, rccogniz.cd that class, and from the other laws of 
Moses relating to the treatment of such, and the prohibi- 
tion <>f man-stealing. That there were many of the Ethi- 
opians who were in bondage in the time of Moses, who 
himself married an Ethiopian woman, is, I doubt not, 
true ; but let nit; here repeat what 1 have before said, that 



312 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Ethiopia in Africa and Ethiopia in Asia were different 
places, and the people of a different color. The one in 
Asia was the first settled country in the world. It lay 
between the Euphrates and the Tigris, the two great rivers 
mentioned by Moses, and which, issuing from the garden of 
Eden, after encompassing a large territory, emptied them- 
selves into the ocean. Babylon and xTineveh, and hun- 
dreds of other cities, belonged to that region. It contained 
the birthplace of man, — where man, as to mind and 
bod}', was seen in highest perfection. The other Ethiopia, 
though sometimes used to denote the whole of Africa, is 
more properly the interior part, from whence after a time 
slaves were brought to Egypt and the countries on the 
Mediterranean, as also to Greece and Rome, where we are 
told they were preferred to those of any other country. 
The first of the African race who were carried into Eu- 
rope and sold as slaves, though of dark complexion, were 
doubtless not of the darkest hue as in centuries after, 
when African heat and exposure may have blackened and 
deformed them. It was not until near the Christian era, 
that Horace said, in reproach, 

" Hie niger est, hunc tu Romane caveto." 

The African color and character may, in some measure, 
have been traced to the complexion of Ham himself, or 
the wife of Ham, or to both, or to Phut and his wife. It 
sometimes happens that, in the same family, one son or 
daughter may, by comparison, be dark, and the others 
fair; and let that one intermarry with one of the same 
dark hue, and settle in a tropical and sickly country, how 
soon their descendants would become darker and darker, 
and in other respects degenerate ! So may it have been 
with the African descendants of Ham, without the theory 
of some, that God, by a miracle, for a special purpose, 



ANIMAL SACRIFICES. 



313 



made Ham as black as the Guinea negro; Shem, tawney 
as the Asiatic; and Japheth, fair as the European: 

As Bishop Newton has often been quoted in favor of 
the interpretation which seems to lay the weight of the 
curse or prophecy on the descendants of Hani in Africa, 
and to justify the African slave-trade, it is but justice to 
him to give his statement. lie mentions the proposal to 
alter the text of Moses so as to adapt the prophecy to the 
case of the Africans, but dares not advocate it. Still he 
thinks it may be so understood as to embrace the descend- 
ants of Ham in Africa, and that the slave-trade fulfils it, 
though he does not say that it justifies it. On the con- 
trary, his language in condemnation is even offensive to 
some. " Africa," he says, " was peopled principally by 
the sons of Hum, and for how manv ages have the better 
parts of that country been under the dominion of the Ro- 
mans, and then of the Saracens, and now of the Turks ! 
In what wickedness, ignorance, slavery, barbarity, and 
misery live most of its inhabitants. And of the poor 
iii Lrroen, how many hundreds of them every year are 
bought and sold like beasts in the market, and are con- 
veyed from one part of the world to do the work of beasts 
in another!" We must also do justice to Bishop Newton 
in another respect He most emphatically maintains that 
the weight of the curse was on Canaan, and gives us a 
history of the emigration of the Canaunitish race, not 
onlj in tlit? abominations practised in Palestine, for which 
God cast them out, but also of Carthage afterwards, 
whither a colony of them went. He quotes the language 
of Hannibal, when conquered by the Romans, u Agnosco 
fortunam Carthaginis" — "I acknowledge the fortune of 
Carthage" — and thinks, with the learned Mede, that Han- 
nibal, a child of Canaan, was in these words uttering the 
sentiment of the nation, which, while in Canaan, seemed 
ever to be in fear and trembling, — conscious of being 



314 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



usurpers, and still regarding themselves as under the 
curse of heaven. Whoever will carefully read what the 
scriptures and other histories say of the abominable vices 
and cruelties of the Canaanites, will not be much affected 
by the taunts of infidels, who delight to dwell on the se- 
verities of the Israelites when driving them out of Ca- 
naan, and on the upbraidings of God because they did 
not drive them out sooner and more entirely. In the an- 
cient Book of Wisdom it is written, " For it was thy will, 
Lord, to destroy, by the hands of our fathers, both these 
old inhabitants of the holy land, whom thou hatedst for 
doing most odious works of witchcraft and wicked sacri- 
fices, and these merciless murderers of children and de- 
vourers of man's flesh, and their feasts of blood, with their 
priests out of the midst of their idolatrous crew, and the 
parents that killed with their own hands souls destitute 
of help ; for it was a cursed seed from the beginning." 

Referring you to the scriptures for the cruel and horrid 
rites of the Canaanites, and the Israelites who followed 
their example, I will adduce some testimonies from other 
histories as to their conduct at Carthage and Tyre, where 
they worshipped the gods Moloch and Kronos, — none 
other than the Baal of Canaan. Mr. Bryant says, " Be- 
sides the undetermined times of bloodshed, they had par- 
ticular prescribed times every year when children were 
chosen out of the most noble and reputable families; and 
if a person had an only child, it was more likely to be put 
to death as being more acceptable to the deity, and more 
effective for the general good. Those which were sacri- 
ficed to Kronos were thrown into the arms of a molten 
idol, which stood in the midst of a large fire and was red 
with heat. The arms of the idol were stretched out, and 
the hands turned upward as it were to receive them, yet 
sloping downwards so that they dropped into a glowing 
furnace below. To other gods they were otherwise 



ANIMAL SACRIFICES. 



315 



slaughtered, and, as it is implied, by the very hands of 
their parents. What can be more horrid to the imagina- 
tion than to suppose a father leading the dearest of all his 
6ons to such an infernal shrine ; or a mother, the most 
engaging and affectionate of her daughters, just rising to 
maturity, to be slaughtered at the altar of Ashtaroth or 
Baal ! Sometimes they embraced their children with 
great fondness, and encouraged them in the gentlest 
terms, that they might not be appalled at the sight of 4he 
hellish process, begging them to submit with cheerfulness 
to the fearful operation. If there was any appearance of 
a tear rising, or a cry escaping unawares, the mother 
smothered it with her kisses. These cruel endearments 
over, they stabbed them to the heart or otherwise opened 
the sluices of life, and with the blood, warm as it ran, be- 
smeared the grim visage of the idol." 

But it must not be imagined that the Canaanites and 
their descendants were the only nation who were guilty 
of these same cruel sacrifices. Even the Egyptians, who 
of old, some say, brought no victim to their temples, and 
shed no blood upon their altars, afterwards brought human 
victims. The Cretans and Arabians did the same. The 
people of Dumah, though rejecting images, annually sac- 
rificed a child, ami burned it beneath an altar. The Per- 
sians burned persons alive. Ainestis, the wife of Zerxes, 
burned twelve persons alive for the good of her soul. 
The natives of Tauric Chersonesus offered up to Diana 
every straiiL"-r whom chance threw upon their coasts. 
The Pclasgi, in a time of scarcity, vowed a tenth of all 
that should be born to them, in order to secure plenty. 

Aristoinciies, the Messenian, slew three hundred noble 
Lacedemonians, among whom was the king of Sparta, as 
an offering to Jupiter. "Of old," says Porphyry, "every 
Grecian state, before they march against an enemy, im- 
plored a blessing of the god- by human victims. Livy 



316 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



tells us that in the consulate of Emilias Paulus and Teren- 
tius Yarro, two Gauls and two Greeks were burned alive at 
Rome. For a long time there is reason to believe that the 
captives who graced the triumphs of the Romans, were 
afterwards sacrificed to Jupiter Capitolinus. Caius Marias 
sacrificed his own daughter in order to obtain success in a 
battle with the Cimbri. Even Augustus Caesar offered up 
three hundred chosen persons on an altar dedicated to the 
manes of his uncle, Julius Cassar. The Gauls and Ger- 
mans entered into no business of importance without hu- 
man victims, and the Druid priests presided at the cruel 
ceremony. The places selected for the purpose were dark 
and gloomy forests, and were held in highest reverence. 
All the nations of Northern Europe thus sacrificed to Thor 
and Woden. Harold, a king, slew two of his children to 
procure a storm of wind to destroy an enemy's fleet. Adam 
Brimensis speaks of the awful grove of Upsal, where these 
horrid rites were celebrated, and says, " There was not a 
tree which was not reverenced, and as if it were gifted 
with some portion of the divinity, because they were 
stained with gore." " These accounts, with many others," 
says Bryant, " were handed down to us from numerous 
authors in different ages, many of them natives of the 
countries which they describe. The like custom prevailed 
in a great degree in Mexico, and even under the mild gov- 
ernment of Peru, and in most parts of America. In Africa 
it is still kept up. In the inland parts they still sacrifice 
captives taken in war to their fetishes, in order to secure 
their favor. Mulgrave says, while in the king of Daho- 
mey's camp, he saw multitudes sacrificed to the deity of 
his nation. " The sacrifices," says Mr. Bryant, " of which 
I have been treating, if we except some few instances, con- 
sisted of persons doomed by the chances of war, or assigned 
by lot to be offered up. But among the Canaanites the 
victims are peculiarly chosen. Their own children and 



ANIMAL SACRIFICES. 



317 



whatever was nearest and dearest to them, were consid- 
ered the most worthy offering to their god. It' the parents 
were not at hand to make an immediate offering, the mag- 
istrates did not fail to make choice of what was most fair 
and promising, that the god might not be defrauded of his 
dues." The Carthaginians, upon a great defeat of their 
army by Agathocles, imputed these miscarriages to the 
anger of their gods. Touched witli this, and seeing the 
enemy at their gates, they seized at once two hundred 
children of their prime nobility, and offered them a public 
sacritice. Three hundred more, — being persons who were 
somehow obnoxious, — yielded themselves voluntarily, and 
were put to deatli with the others. The neglect with which 
they accused themselves consisted in sacrificing children 
purchased from parents of the poorer sort, who reared them 
for that purpose, and not selecting the most promising and 
honorable as had been the custom of old. An ancient 
poet has noticed this of the city of Dido, in the following 
lines : 

" Mos erat in populia quos condidit advena Dido, 
Poscere cede Dcos veniam, et fla^rantibus ari9, 
Infandum dictu, parvos imponcre natos." 

These cruel rites, practised in so many nations, made 
Plutarch debate within himself, 6ays Bryant, whether it 
would not have been better for the G&latsa or the Scythians 
to have had no tradition or conception of any superior 
beings, than to have formed to themselves gods who de- 
lighted in the blood of men, who esteemed human victims 
the most acceptable offering and sacritice. " Would it 
not,'' says Plutarch, "have been more eligible for the Car- 
thaginians to have had the atheist Critias, or Diagoras, 
their lawgiver at (lit; beginning of their polity, ami to have 
been taught that there was neither god nor demon, than to 
have sacrificed in the manner they were wont to the god 



318 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



which they adored. These people used, knowingly and 
willingly, to go through this bloody work and slaughter 
their own offspring. Even those who were childless 
would not be exempted from this cursed tribute, but pur- 
chased children at any price from the poorer sort, and put 
them to death with as little remorse as one would kill a 
lamb or a chicken. The mother who sacrificed her child 
stood by without any seeming sense of what she was doing, 
says Plutarch, without uttering a groan. If a sigh did by 
chance escape, she lost all the honor which she purchased 
for herself in offering up her child; but it was, notwith- 
standing, slain. All the time of the celebration, while the 
children were being slain, there was a noise of clarionets 
and tabors sounding before the idol, that the cries and 
shrieks of the victims might not be heard. " Tell me now," 
says Plutarch, " if the monsters of old — the typhons and 
giants of old — were to expel the gods and rule the world 
in their stead, could they require a service more horrid 
than these infernal rites and ceremonies ? " These were 
the sins of the holy things among the heathen, — the abom- 
inable idolatries spoken of in scripture, — and which some 
infidels and philosophers would justify as agreeable to the 
dictates of the consciences of the worshippers themselves, 
and therefore acceptable to God. These tender mercies of 
parents who wanted natural affection ; this calling good 
evil, and evil good ; this offering the fruit of the body for the 
sins of the soul, was the religion of ancient pagans, is the 
religion of modern paganism, is the religion of those " who 
hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell." "O my 
soul, come not thou into their secret I " 



CHAPTER XXII. 



ON THE RELIGION* OF THE AMERICAS. 

In the division of the earth between the descendants of 
Noah, nothing is said in scripture concerning the conti- 
nent of North America. What was its condition before 
the flood, whether it was buried beneath the ocean, and 
raised to the surface by the operation of the waters of the 
deluge, is not told us and cannot be known. Evidences 
<>f its preadamite existence may be found in the bowels 
of the earth. 

The immense bones of animals, and evidences of huge 
unknown plants, and the masses of coal and other miner- 
al-, atii -t revolution:- which could not be effected by the 
flood. Evidences of the flood may also be seen in the 
fossil remains of many animals and plants which lie near 
the surface of the earth, and which may have perished on 
American -oil, or floated hither on the tumultuous waters 
of the deluge from the old world. "Whether any remains 
of man are to he found I am not able to say; if so, they 
may have also come from the old world. Tradition is of 
no service to u-, in determining this and other thin<rs 
touching America. We read, indeed, of some immense 
island, called Atlantis, in the direction of our continent, 
from Enrope and Africa, and there is a tradition of a 
chain of mountains stretching over the Atlantic and con- 
necting the two worlds; but no reliance is to be placed on 
such accounts. That a commencement of the peopling 



320 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



of America may have been made within a few centuries 
after the deluge is altogether probable. 

That the art of ship-building was known before the 
flood, none can question who believe in the Mosaic account 
of the ark, the largest ship that ever rode upon the waves, 
and which out-rode the mightiest tempest that ever 
agitated the great deep. That navigation prevailed be- 
fore the flood, necessarily resulted from or accompanied it. 
That ship-building and navigation began again after the 
flood as soon as any of the human race reached the Med- 
iterranean, the Euxine, the Southern or Eastern Oceans, 
who can question ; and if shipwrecks on islands and 
foreign shores have occurred, even since the mariner's 
compass has been discovered, how much more frequent 
they must have been before. 

That some of the settlements in the islands of Europe 
were the result of shipwrecks, is confidently asserted in an- 
cient history. And when the ancients doubled the Cape 
of Good Hope from the Persian Gulf, and came around 
the continent of Africa to the Mediterranean, and sailed 
along the coast of Europe and Asia, which they most cer- 
tainly did at an early period, who can doubt but that many 
vessels were driven by adverse winds across the Atlantic 
and Pacific, until crews were found increased into nations 
in the two Americas. Such may have been the method 
adopted by Providence, in whose hands are the winds and 
waves, to do his will, for the settlement of the human 
race in America, even before that (about which all seem 
to agree) most probable source of supply to the northern 
portion of the continent, viz., emigration from the North 
of Asia through Behring's straits into the North of 
America. 

The distance between the two continents of America 
and Asia does not exceed twenty miles, and a string of 
islands across this short space renders the passage yet 



RELIGION OF THE AMERICAS. 



321 



easier and the temptation to the enterprise yet greater. 
But a passage from Europe to America has also been 
proved to be much easier than some have imagined. Even 
to this day there are those, and persons of some reading 
too, who believe that Columbus was the first discoverer 
of America ; whereas nothing is better established than 
the fact that from an early period in the tenth century, 
exploring voyages from the North of Europe visited vari- 
ous northern parts of Xorth America. The Anti-Colum- 
banic Society of Copenhagen, established some twenty or 
thirty years since, has published to the world a number 
of volumes containing the reports of these voyages, and 
of the points at which they touched, with some account 
of the natives and the productions of the soil. 

Mr. Jefferson, in his " Notes on Virginia," says, " Dis- 
coveries long ago were sufficient to show that a passage 
from Eif lope to America was always practicable, even to 
the imperfect navigation of ancient times, by the way of 
Iceland, (Jreenland, and Labrador." And again: ''The 
late discoveries of Captain Cook, coasting from Kamt- 
schatka to California, have proved that if the two con- 
tinent- of Asia and America are separated at all, it is 
only by a narrow strait." Mr. Gallatin thinks that "the 
North American Indians may have been drawn from the 
old world wit li in rive hundred years after the dispersion 
from Babel." They may have gotten here either from Eu- 
rope, or Asia. One of our most practical philosophers, 
Lieutenant Maury, in his admirable treatise on the winds, 
wave-, and tide, has added great force to the hypothesis 
of I'rot'c-^or Schoolcraft and others as to the early sct- 
tl. incut of the North American Indians from Asia, lie 
Bays, in reply to some questions proposed to him on the 
•abject, that a man with a sufficient supply of provisions 
might cross the sea, in certain latitudes much south of 
t'.ie straits, on a log, by means of the trade winds and the 
"21 



322 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



equable current in that region. Sir Alexander M'Kenzie 
tells us " that one of the Arctic tribes believes that its 
ancestors came from another country, crossing a lake full 
of islands, where it was always winter." Of another 
tribe, " they have a tradition," he says, " that they came 
from Siberia." 

Professor Schoolcraft, quoting Voltaire's "Essay on the 
History of China," says, "They were acquainted with the 
power of the magnet, and the mariner's compass." Du- 
hald, in his " History of China," says, " Naval architec- 
ture has belonged to the Chinese and Japanese time out of 
mind." No doubt it did, for they received it from the ante- 
diluvians, through Noah and his family. In relation to the 
early settlement of America, both North and South, we 
may well assent to the probability of the opinion of one 
who said that "The foot of man has long since trodden 
many a soil supposed never to have been pressed before."* 

* Sir Matthew Hale thus expresses his opinion as to the changes iu the 
earth and sea. He quotes Ovid as saying, 

" Vidi ego quod f'uerat quondam solidissima tellus, 
Esse fretum ; vidi factas ex quore terras." 

" Some towns," he says, " that were anciently havens and ports where ships 
did ride, are now, by exaggeration of sand between these towns and the sea, con- 
verted into firm land, two, three, and four miles distant from the sea. The delta of 
Egypt, and all Holland were once under water." Heinclines to the belief of the 
great island of Atlanta, near Spain and Africa, beyond the straits of Gibraltar, 
and which might almost have connected Africa and Europe with America, and 
afforded an easy passage between them. Again, he says, " There might have 
been, in former times, necks of land whereby communication between the parts 
of the earth, and mutual passage and repassage for men and animals, might have 
been, which in a period of 4000 years may have been altered ; that these parts 
of Asia and America which are now disjoined by the interluency of the sea, 
might have been formerly in some age of the world contiguous to each other, 
and those spots of ground, viz., the Philippine Islands, and others that are now 
crumbled into small islands, might anciently have been one entire continent." 
Much of transplantation, he thinks, was by navigation, either casual, by tem- 
pests or contrary winds, or with design. " Navigation is of that great anti- 
quitv, that it is difficult to assign when it began to be in use. The ark of Noah 
was certainly a most exact piece of architecture, and might give a pattern and 
instruction for vessels of great burthen." "Jacob," he says, "who died 600 
years after the flood, mentions ships and havens for ships as things well known. 



RELIGION" OF THE AMERICAS. 



323 



As to North American Indians, there is something in them 
so resembling the ancient Jews, — the descendants of Sliem, 
many of whom settled in China as is believed, — that some 
have supposed they were of that race, and belong to the 
lost tribes. Nothing: certain being known of them since 
the Babylonian captivity, it is thought they penetrated 
to the North of Asia, and crossed over to America. 
Hugo Grotius, and our American, Mr. Boudinor, adopted 
this opinion, and have written in defence of it. Al- 
though the resemblance is acknowledged to be striking 
in many respects, yet the proofs are not so well made 
out as to be satisfactory. The pious Cotton Mather, of 
Boston, used to say, " Our Indians were the ruins of man- 
kind ; and although we know not how or when they became 
inhabitants of this mighty continent, yet we may guess 
that the devil decoyed them hither in hopes that the gos- 
pel of our Lord Jesus Christ would never come to destroy 
hi- ab>nlute empire over them." In this we trust the Evil 
One will be disappointed ; and though but little has been 
done towards the conversion of this race to that gospel 
which has brought life and immortality to light, yet we 
trust that the means which have been adopted and are still 
n.-fd will be crowned with entire success, in God's good 
time, and through the influence of his Spirit. Nor was the 
devil able to prevent their forefathers from bringing to 
thin land, or their children from retaining, some relics of 
the faith once delivered to the ancient saints, wherewith 
to answer the infidels of our day, who will not believe that 
God i'Vit communicated a revelation of himself to the 
parent.-, of the human race, or any of their successors. 
The resemblance between some of the leading princi- 

lle -|. nf on onrient mariner who planted n colony in Greenland in the year 
l'-'J, ami e«taliliiln-<l the ('hriiti.in religion there, fn.tn v\ 1 1 ■ - 1 1 • ■ • OpIOIllCI lo.iy 
have been traduced into the northern parts of Aimuca." Some migration, he 
think*, may have bceu within three or four hundred yearn after the Mood. 



324 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



pies and customs and traditions of the Indians and of the 
old world is too striking not to satisfy the candid inquirer 
after truth that they must have had one common origin. A 
late writer among us asserts the identity of some of the 
elementary conceptions of the primitive nations of the old 
and new world, and admits that the conclusion, from the 
many striking resemblances which appear, would naturally 
be, that their institutions, notions, and monuments are found- 
ed on an original connection. This, however, he doubts, 
rather inclining to the opinion that the similarity results 
from the uniformity of the human mind and character, 
which tends to the same results of its own accord. He 
evidently inclines to the belief that the American families 
were distinct in their origin, and did not descend from the 
single pair on the banks of the Euphrates, spoken of in 
scripture.* Let the reader judge, from what has already 
been said as to the points of resemblance between the na- 
tions of the old world, and what will follow as to the iden- 
tity between them and many things in the new, whether 
such a conclusion is not both unscriptural and unphilo- 
sophical. 

I shall be chiefly indebted for the facts' about to be 
stated, in relation to the northern tribes of America, to the 
researches of that learned and laborious investigator of 
their history, Professor Schoolcraft, of "Washington, who 
has been for so many years in the employ of the Ameri- 
can Congress for this purpose. In the good providence of 
God it has fallen into the hands of a sound-minded believer 
in the Sacred Scriptures, and not into those of a specula- 
tive sceptic. Already has he furnished six folio volumes 
of information touching the native tribes of North Amer- 
ica, illustrating the same with plates, which add much 
interest to the work. 

* E. G. Squier, author of several works on the Aborigines and Monuments of 
North America. 



RELIGION* OF THE AMERICAS. 



325 



the Indian's knowledge of the one true god. 

' We have seen how the ancient mythologies of the old 
world refer to some supreme Xuinen or first cause of all 
things, who does not seem to interfere much with human 
affairs except through inferior agents or deities. AVe have 
also 6een how different is the Mosaic account of God, 
whose name was " I Am," or, "I Am that I Am," — the eter- 
nal, self-existent God. Now the Indians seem to have come 
Dears* to the Mosaic account than most other nations, 
though like the rest they have disfigured it by their addi- 
tion-,. The name of their god is " Jan," or "The Great I 
Am." Schoolcraft says it admits of no question that " when 
properly viewed, the Great Spirit of the Indians is a purer 
deity than that of the Greeks and Romans, with all their 
refinement." As far as the great good spirit is concerned, 
they hold the doctrine of the Unity better than many of 
tin- ancient philosophers. The Indian is a believer in the 
myBteriona and the wonderful. To him, the world is re- 
plete with wonders and mysteries. Every phenomenon in 
nature which he cannot explain is the act of God ; God is 
everywhere present, — in the thunder and the lightning, 
in every sound of the forest, etc. JJut then he follows the 
example of the old world by super-additions; lie has his 
inferior deities to do what the great God, — the Great I 
Am — does not choose to do. He sees these in all the ani- 
mal.-, of the earth, or in the air, or sea.-, and they do good 
or ill to man as they are good or ill themselves. This, of 
SOUrse, tills their religion with superstition, and their wor- 
ship, like that of tin- heathen of old, would he given more 
to the lesser deities than to the great (rod. As to the prac- 
tical part of their religion, it is in many respects superior 
to that of the Hindoo- and of the Europeans. They never 
destroy their children, nor do the widows immolate them- 



826 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



selves. They never drown their old men, or, in false pen- 
ance, swing themselves up on hooks of steel. These phi= 
losophers of the woods, as they have been called, rea- 
soned very much as the philosophers of Greece, Rome, and 
Egypt did. They say that God must be in every remarka- 
ble thing in nature. "Fire," they say, "must be God, or else 
it would not produce such wonderful effects." " The Vir- 
ginia Indians," says Harriotte, " believed not only in the 
existence of one god, but in the sun, moon, and stars, as sub- 
ordinate deities. They also believed that the gods were all in 
the human form, — wherefore they made images of them and 
offered presents to them." The Indians seem to reason as if 
acquainted with the history of man at his first creation, 
saying that " God made him exactly as he ought." He 
looks back to a golden age ; his present life is one of suf- 
fering; the next is one of compensation and rewards. 
He does not believe in future punishment, but hold the 
same opinion on this subject as did many of the ancient 
nations and philosophers. His god is exclusively one of 
kindness, not of holiness. It never enters into his head that 
justice is one of the attributes of the Deity. He sings his 
funeral song at the stake with the assurance of happiness 
to come. The Indians account for evil in very much the 
same way with many of the philosophers and mythologists 
of the old world, affirming that the great God is only 
good. They exempt him from malice, by supposing an 
evil spirit who is inferior to him. Their pictorial and 
hieroglyphical symbols represent their Great Spirit, called 
" Wazatoad," the original animating principle, as invaria- 
bly good. He is sometimes called Menedo. The evil princi- 
ple is sometimes called Menedo, and indeed all the ma- 
lignant spirits are so called. When their god is called 
Menedo, they use the prefix Great. They never call the 
evil spirit Wazatoad ; — that name is only given to the 
great and good god. This is almost identical w T ith the 



RELIGION' OF THE AMERICAS. 



327 



Persian doctrine of good and evil, as taught by Zoroaster. 
The tradition of the Iroquois Indians differs somewhat from 
this. They say that two great principles or demons, sub- 
ject however to the great Jan, or I Am, were born at the 
creation, and are ever opposing each other. To this, let 
me add that the Camanche tribe of Indians acknowledge 
a supreme ruler, whom they call the Great Spirit, but say 
they cannot worship him, he is too far off, but that they 
can worship the sun, who is between them and the Supreme 
Being. They are, like many of the ancient philosophers 
and idolaters, Universal ists, believing that they will all go, 
at death, to a place where they will all be happy. Their 
funeral ceremonies are much the same with those in Asia. 
Tii'- Indian- generally have very false views of the purity 
and holiness of God, as was the case with their ancestors 
in the old world. They believe that he is good, but not 
responsible for or careful of the moral government of the 
world ; that he is not a lawgiver and a judge; that to lie 
tad steal and commit murder are not offences against him. 
He commits all this to inferior deities, and these are all 
mixed up together in a kind of chaos. These good and 
81 il spirits are all under the direction of the superior good 
and evil -pints, and the earth, air, clouds, winds, and trees 
are always foil of them. They are all, whether good or 
evil, called Manettos. The name Manctto is continually 
in their mouths, and the things themselves before their 
imagination. The Indian's religion has much to do with 
the doctrine and worship of the serpent. In Adams 
county, Ohio, there is a hill or elevation seven hundred 
feet long, representing tin; oil of a serpent ; its jaws are 
widely extended as in the act of swallowing ; in the open- 
ing is an oval mound repre-ent ing the " Eastern egg " of 
Ormazd. Here we have the Persic or Chaldean idea. 

I need not speak of tin; numerous mounds which here, 
as in all other parts of the world, have been used for the 



328 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



worship of the sun, and three thousand of which have been 
discovered in the two Americas. 

The doctrine of the transmigration of the soul, so com- 
mon in the old world, is found also in the new. They 
believe that many sonls pass into other bodies, either of 
men or animals. They believe also in the duality of the 
soul. There are two souls to every man : the one remains 
with the body in the grave, while the other forsakes it ; 
wherefore they leave a hole in the grave, where they de- 
posit food for a certain time. 

They have very vague notions about a future state, all 
being dark and mysterious to them. Many believe they 
will have the same enemies in that state which they had 
on earth, and they therefore have their weapons of war 
buried with them. They know nothing of the Christian 
doctrine of forgiveness. The destruction and torture of 
enemies is their glory, their happiness. They have also 
traditions of the deluge ; that the earth was once destroy- 
ed by water, and will be again destroyed by fire. The 
Chickasaws say that the earth was once destroyed by 
water, and that only one man and two of every kind of 
animals were saved. 

As hieroglyphics and pictorial language or symbols 
were used in Egypt, and still are used in China, so are 
they among the Indians, and the labor of the learned is 
every year deciphering it better, and discovering more 
and more of the history and religion of the nations who 
used them. 

I make one remark as to the languages of the Indians, 
which Mr. Schoolcraft and our missionaries have been 
carefully studying, and into which our scriptures and 
other books are being translated. It is in America, as in 
other parts of the world, — examination into the words and 
grammar of the different nations is continually reducing 
the number of original languages, and showing the truth 



RELIGION OF THE AMERICAS. 



329 



of Sir William Jones' declaration that there would not 
be found more than three, which were in use soon after 
the dispersion from Babel, and from which all others have 
sprung. When we consider that before this there was 
only one, and that one the tongue of Koah and his sons, 
and of his antediluvian forefathers up to our first parents 
in paradise, more force is added to the argument for 
the unity of the human race, proving that all the nations 
of the earth are of one blood, descended from those who 
were made by the hands of God in paradise. 

I conclude this chapter with an extract from Mr. School- 
craft's book, containing two specimens of the Indian char- 
acter and eloquence, which I am sure will delight the 
reader. The first is from the last speech of Passacon- 
naway, the chief of the Pcnacook tribe of Indians, on 
the Merrimack, in Xew England, where the good mission- 
ary. Mr. Eliot, labored. This celebrated chief became 
a Christian under Mr. Eliot's teaching. In the year 
1660 there was a vast assemblage of the Indians at Pau- 
tuckct, when, borne down with age and cares, the old 
Sagamore, at a public feast, made a farewell speech to 
his people. "Hearken," he said, " to the words of your 
father: I am an old oak, which has withstood the storms 
of more than a hundred winters. Leaves and branches 
have been stripped from me by the winds and frosts; my 
eyes are <lim, my limbs totter — I must. soon fall. I Jut, 
when young and sturdy, when no man of the IYnacooks 
could bend my bow, when my arrows could pierce a deer 
at a hundred yards, and I conld bury my hatchet in a 
sapling to the eye, no wigwam hail !-«> many furs, no pule 
so many BCalplocfcs, a* Passaconnaway's. Then I delighted 

in war. The whoop of the Penai I< was heard upon the 

Mohawk, and no voice was v> loud as I'a-saeonnawav's. 
The scalps upon tin- pole of my wigwam told the story 
ol Mohawk .-iiflering. The English came; they seized 



330 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



our lands : I sat me down at Penacook. They followed 
upon my footsteps. I made war upon them, but they 
fought with fire and thunder. My young men were swept 
down before me when none were near them. I tried sor- 
cery against them, but still they increased and prevailed 
over me and mine, and I gave place to them and retired 
to my beautiful island of ISTatticock. I, that can make the 
dry leaf green, and live again ; I, that can take the rattle- 
snake in my hand as I would a worm, without harm ; I, 
who held communion with the Great Spirit, sleeping and 
waking, — I am powerless before the pale faces. The oak 
will soon bend before the whirlwind ; it shivers, it shakes ; 
soon its trunk will be prostrate ; the ant and the worm 
will sport upon it. Then think, my children, of what I 
say ; I co/nmune with the Great Spirit ; he whispers me 
now, Tell your people ' peace, peace is the only hope of 
your race. I have given fire and thunder to the pale 
faces for weapons ; I have made them plentier than the 
leaves of the forest, and still they shall increase. These 
meadows they shall turn with the plough ; these forests 
shall fall by the axe. The pale faces shall live upon your 
hunting-grounds, and make their villages upon your fish- 
ing-places.' The Great Spirit says this, and it must be so. 
We are few and powerless before them ; we must bend 
before the storm. The wind blows hard. The old oak 
trembles ; its branches are gone ; its sap is frozen. It 
bends — it falls ! Peace with the white man is the com- 
mand of the Great Spirit, — is the wish, and the last wish 
of Passaconnaway." 

The other passage is from an Oneida chief, Skenandoah, 
who was a convert to the Christian faith under the Pev. 
Mr. Kirkland. He took part with the Americans in the 
war of the Revolution, and lived to the age of one hun- 
dred and ten years, and, dying in March, 1816, desired to 
be buried by the side of his old pastor, that, as he said, 



RELIGIOX OF THE AMERICAS. 



331 



lie might be near him in the great resurrection. On 
some occasion, when a number of persons were present, 
he uttered these words: "I am an old hemlock; the winds 
of a hundred winters have whistled through my branches; 
I am dead at the top; the generation to which I belong 
have run their course and have left me. Why I live thus 
long the Great Spirit only knows. Pray to my Jesus that 
I may have patience to await my appointed time to die." 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



ON THE RELIGION OF MEXICO AND PERU. 

That Mexico was settled long before the period sup- 
posed by our fathers is now generally agreed. The re- 
mains of its ancient buildings and monuments testify to 
this. Its early and most noted settlers, though not its 
original ones, came from the northern part of America. 
By mingling with the primitive ones they may have bor- 
rowed some of their religious observances from them ; 
whether they came immediately from the old world, be- 
ing the offspring of a few shipwrecked ones, or whether 
they came from South America. Pritchard says, they 
have a tradition that their ancestors came from the East 
in vessels or canoes. Mr. John Johnson, agent of our 
government for the Shawnees, says they have a tradition 
that their ancestors crossed the sea and settled in Florida. 
Montezuma told Cortes that there was an ancient con- 
nexion between the Spaniards and the Mexicans, only he 
affirmed that the Spaniards sprung from the Mexicans. 

As to the ancient documents and pictorial representa- 
tions, of which there were many, Pritchard says, " The 
Spaniards sought for them and destroyed them with the 
most barbarous zeal and perseverance." Some of these 
have been more recently discovered, by the enterprise and 
zeal of travellers, especially of our enterprising country- 
man, Mr. Stephens, of whose visit to Mexico we shall speak 
hereafter. Ancient Mexico contained only about sixteen 



RELIGION OF MEXICO AND PERU. 



333 



thousand square miles, (about twice the size of New Eng- 
land,) with every variety of climate and productions. It 
is not at all 'wonderful that it became an object of desire 
to the adventurous North-men of America. 

The first of these came in the seventh century, and were 
called Toltecs, a name signifying architects, and justly, for 
they were the builders of those immense structures whose 
remains are yet to be seen. They were in America what 
the Cyclopeans and other architects — the descendants of 
Nimrod — were in Europe and Asia, and may have de- 
scended from them and inherited their skill and ambition. 

The Toltecs not only built the temples of the Mexicans, 
but laid the foundation of their religion. Different tribes 
soon followed them, among whom were the Aztecs, a war- 
like race. These tribes poured down from the North on 
the milder climates of the South, as the hordes of Gauls 
did on Italy. After four centuries the Toltecs disappeared, 
both as to name and nation, and the Aztecs, with some 
6maller tribes, only are heard of. After a time, their 
name and the names of the others were all merged in 
that of Mexicans. The name of the country whence the 
Toltecs came, in the seventh century, was Anahuac. 

" The ancient Astecs or Mexicans," says Prescott, in his 
''History of Mexico," "had little of the poetry of relig- 
ion such as marked that of Greece, but resembled the 
religion of the Orientals, from which it probably sprang." 
Their ritual, like that of the Asiatic.-, was very burden- 
some. They recognized one supreme being, or /'■/■/'■ 
according to their language. He w as pure, omnipotent, 
knowing all things, incorporeal, by whom we live, and 
the giver of all thing-. Iiesides him then: were thirteen 
principal deities, and more than three hundred inferior 
ones. They also believed in an evil spirit) who w as the 
enemy of the human ra-c. The chiefs of the thirteen 
principal deities were the Mexican Mars,-- the patron of 



334 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



the nation,— a sanguinary monster, whose altar reeked 
with the blood of human victims in all the cities of the 
empire. Prescott says that scarcely any author estimates 
the yearly sacrifice at less than twenty thousand victims, 
while some place their number at fifty thousand. Their 
object in war was to gather victims as much as to extend, 
territory. Therefore they always endeavored to take 
them alive. 

Though they were not cannibals, in the ordinary sense 
of the term, yet they were so in a most shocking one. 
They fed on human flesh, not to gratify a brutal appetite, 
but in obedience to their religion. " Their repasts," says 
Prescott, " were made on the victims whose blood had 
been shed on the altar of saci'ifice." 

But this was not brought to them by the Toltecs, for 
they had nothing of it. It was superadded to their wor- 
ship, and came from other sources. It is believed that 
human sacrifices were not introduced until about two 
hundred years before the Spanish conquest. Beside the 
sanguinary god of war — the chief object of their worship 
— they had twelve other deities, who presided over the 
different departments of agriculture and the arts, thereby 
showing the derivation of their religion from the ancient 
world. Their temples were called " Houses of God," 
and were solid masses of earth covered with brick. On 
their tops were the images of their gods. A stone altar 
was also erected on each one, and on it pei^etual fire 
burned, as in Europe, Asia, and Africa. In the great 
temple at Mexico there were six hundred altars, in the 
numerous apartments of which it consisted. Every month 
was dedicated to some particular deity, and almost every 
day to some celebration. 

This leads me to speak of Mr. Stephens' visit to Central 
America, and of the ruins of a great temple which he 
discovered, among rubbish, trees, and bushes* In the 



RELIGIOX OF MEXICO AND PERU. 



335 



rear 1839 he was employed by our government to visit 
awl explore Central America. In the introduction to hie 
book, detailing his labors and researches, he very justly 
exposes the ignorance of Dr. Robertson in his " History 
of America," as to the improvements and buildings in 
Mexico. Dr. Robertson says, when discovered they were 
in the rudest state of society ; that their houses were 
mere huts, built of turf and mud and branches of trees, 
like those of the Northern Indians; their temples noth- 
ing hut a mound of earth covered with grass and shrubs. 

Wry different is the account given by Mr. Stephens 
and others. His visit to the city of Copar alone resulted 
in the disc very of the remains of ancient buildings of 
massive structure, covered with engravings and sacred 
hieroglyphics, which show that what their most ancient 
Writers and monuments testify of their former condition 
is correct. Their architecture is such as ancient Greece 
ami Rome might not he ashamed of. In all human prob- 
ability, tin- principles of their architecture as well as their 
religion were brought from the old world. Their images 
and pictures all point to Egypt and llindostan as the 
sources of their religions creed ami worship. 

There are many other things in the Mexican history, 
traditions, and customs, which also encourage the belief 
of a common origin with the nations of this old world. 
The method of computing time by days, months, years, 
and cycles, is ihc -ame in China and America. As to time 
past, they divide it into cycles and periods. Of these 
there were four. At the cud of each of these, by the ac- 
tion of the elements, the human family was swept from 
the earth, and the -mi blotted out from the heavens to be 
rekindled again. Who does not see in this the successive 
production, destruction, and reproduction of the world, as 
iii the cosmogony of Ilindo>tan, and Chahlea, and Egypt '. 
In one of these cycles, — the second, — they have a tradi- 



336 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



tiou of a race of giants who inhabited the earth. This 
perhaps they may have inferred from finding in the earth 
those huge skeletons which are now the subject. of specu- 
lation to geologists. As to the various traditions in Mexico 
concerning the deluge, Mr. Gallatin's conclusion is, " that 
they originated in a real historical recollection of an uni- 
versal deluge which overwhelmed all mankind in the 
early ages of the world." The Mexicans believed in a fu- 
ture state, and divided men at death into three classes : 
first, the wicked ; secondly, those who died of certain dis- 
eases ; thirdly, the heroes. Of the wicked, the larger 
part was to be punished everlastingly. The diseased were 
to have a kind of negative existence. The heroes were to 
be exalted to the sun, and there distributed among the 
clouds, and beautiful flowers, and birds of paradise. They 
had also a baptism for their children, and a prayer for the 
new birth, — -the doing away of the sin which it had before 
the foundation of the world ; also some good moral pre- 
cepts, though mixed with others of a silly and brutal char- 
acter. ITere again we see a resemblance between them 
and those who were initiated into the ancient mysteries, 
who were baptized, and said to be new-born or regenerated. 

Mr. A. G. Maekey, a leading member of the Masonic 
society, and their chief writer, says, "Among the many 
evidences of a former state of civilization among the 
aborigines of this country, which seems to prove their 
origin fiom the races that inhabit the Eastern hemisphere, 
not the least remarkable is the existence of fraternities 
bound by mystic ties, and claiming, like the Freemasons, 
to possess an esoteric knowledge, which they are careful 
to conceal from all but the initiated." The members of 
one of them claim that their institution has existed from 
the creation. The times of their meeting they keep se- 
cret, and throw much mystery around their proceedings. 
The most remarkable of these was in the Mexican temple 



RELIGION OF MEXICO AND PERU. 



337 



Yitzliputzly, which was accompanied by secret, severe, 
and sometimes cruel rites. In one of them the god was 
seated in a square ark, and had a rod like a serpent in his 
hand. It is thought that the wandering of the Israelites 
through the wilderness is set forth. 

THE PERUVIANS OF SOUTU AMERICA. 

For the history of this deeply interesting country, its 
origin, its boundaries, its political character, its public 
roads, its suspension bridges, its underground passages, 
its galleries cut through rocks, and many such things 
which almost defy belief, and which even modern inven- 
tions scarcely equal, we must refer our readers to tho 
various histories of it, such as Prcscott's, Rivero's, and 
others'. Its religious history belongs to this volume, and 
that can only be presented in a general way. The striking 
resemblance between the religion and priesthood of Peru 
and the religion and priesthood of Buddha, in Ilindostan, 
China, and Japan, str«>ng!y inclines those who have ex- 
amined the subject most carefully to believe that the 
Peruvians were colonists from some part of Asia, either 
by voluntary emigration or by -hipwreck. 

Let ii- l.rietlv examine their religious system. In the 
work of Iiivero and T.-ehudi. :i> edited by Dr. Hawks of 
New York, we have an account of their ancient hclief, 
before the worship of the sun was -et up hy Mango ( 'apac, 
whom he suspects to he a Huddhist priest. According to 
the best and most ancient account, the supreme being of 
IVru was called Con, and had n<> human form or materia] 
body, but was an invisible and omnipotent being, who 
inhabited the universe. 

By his word alone lie created the world and all things 
in it, — peopling the earth with men, and providing for 
them ail things necessary for their well-being and happi- 
99 



338 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



ness. Tims, overflowing with the gifts of Providence, the 
human race for a long time remained happy, until they 
gave themselves up to vice and crime, and neglected the 
respect due to Con. Con became enraged, sent judgments 
upon them, and converted the earth into a barren desert. 
At length Pachacamack, the son of Con, undertook the 
government of the world, and, renewed everything. The 
new generations raised a sumptuous temple to Pachaca- 
mack, on the banks of the sea, worshipping him with the 
greatest idolatry. The temple of Pachacamack, where 
Con his father was supposed to reside, though incorporeal 
and invisible, was the only temple in Peru raised to the 
supreme being. The ruins of it are still to be seen at 
Lurin, to the south of Lima. It is probable that, even at 
this time, they worshipped some inferior deities. At 
length arose Mango Capac, the great, reformer, who de- 
clared that the supreme divinity was the sun, without 
whom nothing could exist in the world ; that both Con 
and Pachacamack were the offspring of the sun, as he 
himself was ; that they were his brothers ; that the omnip- 
otent father had permitted him to incarnate himself and 
descend to the earth, in order to teach men the arts and 
sciences, and to instruct them concerning the will of the 
supreme being. The new doctrine was received, and 
rapidly spread. 

Mango Capac, a name which signifies great, or power- 
ful, was the first of the Incas, or divine kings, of Peru — 
Inca meaning king, or lord. All other Incas were the de- 
scendants of Mango Capac, the sons of him who was the 
son of the sun, and thus children of the sun, who was the 
supreme divinity. It was not very easy to establish or 
perpetuate this system, which had for its basis the aggran- 
dizement of the royal family. Not only was a free pas- 
sage granted to every nation subject to the Incas to the 
temple of Con and Pachacamack, but on one side.of the 



RELIGION OF MEXICO AND PERU. 339 

great temple at Cusco the worship of Pachacamack was 
allowed, while great pains was taken to encourage the 
worship of the sun on the other. 

In regard to the doctrines of the Peruvians, as existing 
under Mango Gapae, they believed in the moon ; called 
her the sister wife of the sun, and the stars her heavenly 
train, especially the planet Yenus. The thunder and 
lightning, and the rainbow, were also deities. To these, 
as in the old world, were added all the different objects 
in nature, — as winds, rivers, the earth. All things that 
were moving, and had life and the power of production, 
were objects of worship; in fine, that most universal doc- 
trine of pantheism prevailed. Their system was kept up 
by the united authority of the Incas and the priesthood. 
The priests were all of the royal family ; they were divided 
into courses, and ever served at the temple. The great 
temple was that of Cusco. That to the sun was almost 
entirely of gold. Three or four hundred others were in 
the city and round about it. The sacred fire was ever 
burning, ami was kept, as at Rome, by vestal virgins, the 
virgins of the sun. Tims the government of the sun was 
a complete theocracy. The religion of the nations which 
were conquered by the Incas was tolerated so far as to 
allow their deities to be brought to Cusco, and placed 
among the inferior deities. But then the worship of the 
sun most be introduced into all the conquered territories. 
Temples must be erected to the sun in all of them. Wor- 
ship of the sun, or god of war, niu>t be chosen. Two hun- 
dred thousand lamas were sacrificed annually to the sun 
in Cusco alone. The Inca was allowed to have as many 
wives as he chose. At his death they all immolated them- 
selves. One thousand have been known to have thus sac- 
rificed thein-i-h c- at the death of one Inca. As sons of 
the supreme divinity, the Incas always received profound 
adoration. Viiachoca was the name of one of the brothers 



340 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



of Mango Capac, and was the incarnate deity, who often 
revisited the Incas, and prophesied of future events. He- 
roes were also worshipped in some places, under the name 
ofHuacos. To some of them temples were raised. House- 
hold gods were innumerable. But still it is said that even 
the Incas would sometimes recur to the ancient Deity. One 
of them said, " Many say that the sun lives, and that he is 
the maker of all things; consequently, that which makes 
everything must assist that which is made. But many things 
are made during the absence of the sun, therefore he is not 
the maker of all things. And that he does not live, is 
proved, because his trips do not tire him. If he were a 
living thing, he would grow very like ourselves; or if he 
were free, he would visit other parts of the heavens where 
he has never been. He is like the tired bullock, which 
always makes the same circuit; like the arrow, which 
goes where it is sent, and not where it wishes." 

Another said, " I tell thee that this one father, the sun, 
must have another lord or master more powerful than 
himself, who commands him each day to make his circuit, 
which he does without stopping; whereas, were he the 
supreme lord, he would sometimes leave off travelling, 
and rest for his own pleasure, even though there might be 
no necessity for so doing.'' 1 

As to the doctrine of the Peruvians, they believed in a 
future state ; that the just went to a beautiful and pleasant 
place, unknown to the living, while the souls of the mali- 
cious were tormented in a doleful place, where they 
were filled with sorrow and fright ; and that after a cer- 
tain time they would return to their bodies, beginning a 
new life, having the same occupations as before. This 
made them careful to preserve the corpses, as the Egyp- 
tians did, and to bury some of their clothes and utensils 
and other property with them. The great god Con and 
his son Pachacamack were to be their judges. They also 



RELIGION OF MEXICO AND PERU. 



311 



believed in an evil spirit, who was very powerful, and had 
a great hatred to the human race. The name of their god, 
Pachacamack, was a great antidote to the enmity of this 
spirit. 

On the birth of a child, they raised him in their arms, 
and offered him to this deit}-, imploring his protection for 
the new-born infant. 

They, like the Mexicans, had a tradition of the deluge; 
and that seven persona were saved in a cave, from whence 
they issued, and were the ancestors of a new race. They 
had also a tradition of an ark very much like that of Moses. 
They also had their belief of a future destruction of the 
world. Surely nothing more is necessary to identify them 
and their religion with the people and the religion of Eu- 
rope, Asia, and Africa.* 

* There is also a resemblance between some of the Peruvian rites and the 
Christian sacraments and ceremonies. Some, to account for this, have said 
that, even in the apostles' day, some persons, by shipwreck or otherwise, may 
bare found their way to America, and established Christianity among those 
already on that continent, though it soon became corrupted by intercourse with 
the natives, and degenerated, a.s the Jewish and Christian religion has in other 
ages and countries of the old world. Certain it is, that baptism, confirmation, 
holy orders, and penance were all found among the Peruvians, resembling those 
customs of the same name in the Christian church ; but, as there are similar 
rites in the pagan world, these may have had a pagan rather than a Christian 
origin. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



ON THE PAGAN MYSTERIES. 



Theke were secret celebrations, more or less frequently 
observed, in different parts of tbe three great continents 
of tbe old world. In them were set forth tbe leading facts 
in tbe early history of man, as handed down by tradition ; 
viz., bis fall, the deluge, etc. The existence of God and 
the gods, a future state, tbe necessity of a renovation of 
man's nature and a virtuous life in order to a happy im- 
mortality, are also said to have been tbe subjects repre- 
sented in their mysteries. There were the greater and 
the lesser mysteries ; all might be admitted into tbe lat- 
ter, comparatively few into the former. The greater mys- 
teries were those of the Cabiri, the Eleusinian, the Bachic, 
the Samothracian, and the Mithraic. Some others, per- 
haps, put in a claim to this rank. They were performed, 
with many religious ceremonies, in dark caves and grottos, 
or tbe lower apartments of great temples, either in tbe 
night, or, if in the day, the light was excluded so. as to 
require lamps. The word mystery is also used in our 
Bible, especially with reference to that wonderful dispen- 
sation which was comparatively hidden from the Jews, 
viz., Christ manifest in the flesh, and dying for men; of 
which it is written, " Great is the mystery of godliness." 
The Christian sacraments are also, in one sense, mysteries, 
though performed in open day, and fully explained, be- 
cause they have outward and visible signs of inward and 



THE PAGAN MYSTERIES. 



343 



spiritual things. Moses established no secret societies or 
mysteries. He had nothing to conceal. The sanctum 
sanctorum of the temple, with the ark, was indeed for- 
bidden to all, except the high-priest once a year ; but then, 
its design and all about it were known. In opposition to 
all the mysteries of the heathen, — those mysteries of in- 
iquity, for the most part, — God said, by Isaiah, to the Jews, 
" I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth." 
Our Saviour delivered all his doctrines openly, and hade 
Ins disciples proclaim them upon the house tops. Bishop 
Warborton, one of the greatest admirers of the pagan 
mysteries, as setting forth the unity of God and teaching 
morality, until they degenerated, nevertheless admits that 
" not one of all that numerous rabble of revelations (pre- 
tended by the heathen) ever professed to come from the 
First Cause, or to teach the worship of the one God in their 
public ministrations," though he thinks they did for a time 
in the greater mysteries. Kuscbius -ays, " For the Hebrew 
people alone was reserved the honor of being initiated 
into the knowledge of God, the creator of all things, and 
of hcing instructed in true piety to him." Nevertheless, 
we ma}' derive sonic good from these ancient institutions 
of the heathen, which were doubtless permitted by God 
for the preservation of 6onie truth, when it was fast dis- 
appearing fr<>m the earth. 

We have seen, in preceding chapters, what a remark- 
able .resemblance there was between the gods and the 
early traditions of the heathen world, and endeavored to 
derive an argument therefrom on behalf of what was and 
still is held among the heathen, in common with the scrip- 
tures. This argument will be strengthened if we tind the 
same resemblance between the facts celebrated and the 
doctrines taught in the numerous secret societies spread 
throughout the ancient pagan world. Xow such resem- 
blance and even identity are admitted by the ablest mythol- 



* 



344 THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 

ogists, just as all must admit that the Jewish and Chris- 
tian ordinances and feasts set forth the same great facts 
and doctrines, when celebrated in all the tribes of Judea 
and in all the nations of Christendom. Mr. Faber and 
others account for the remarkable similarity between the 
things celebrated in the mysteries in the same way that 
they do for the similarity of the traditions of the ancient 
world, as to the facts of the creation and the deluge, — that 
is, from their holding them alike before the dispersion, 
and after the confusion of tongues carrying them into all 
lands. He thinks it probable that JSToah and his sons and 
their children may have established some celebration of 
their deliverance from the deluge, when as yet they were 
all one family. This may have been kept up and enlarged 
until the meeting at Babel, and then assumed a firm char- 
acter, and afterward been distributed through all the 
dispersed nations or tribes. The surprising similarity as 
to the deluge and the ark makes this theory highly prob- 
able. This will appear from an account of them. 

As to the purposes of the mysteries, so far as the gods 
of the heathen are concerned, all agree that they repre- 
sent them as having once been mortals ; that they were, 
at their death, translated to the heavens, and presided as 
tutelary deities over different departments of nature, and 
different countries and towns. But on one point there is 
diversity of opinion among the learned. Bishop War- 
burton and Dr. Cudworth maintain that, besides teaching 
the earthly origin of the gods and goddesses of the 
heathen, they lead on the initiated to the knowledge of 
the one true God, the creator of all things. Messrs. Faber, 
Bryant, Leland, and others question this, and say they do 
teach a certain unity, yet not that unity which is revealed 
in the scriptures, but rather an imperfect thing, the result 
of the deification of the first father of the universe, as re- 
appearing in Noah, according to many of the old mythol- 



TITE PAG AX MYSTERIES. 



315 



ogies, and afterward the unity of all the powers in nature. 
It was the unity of Adam and Noah, the father of the 
races, from whom so many millions proceeded. The great 
Creator was lost and forgotten in these. Jupiter, the 
eldest of the three sons of Chronos, the great Father, 
usurped the supreme dominion, and became the great 
god ot the Greeks and Romans. Certain it is that poets 
and mycologists, and even philosophers, speak of him in 
such a way as to ascribe a certain unity and supremacy 
to him, though they often contradict themselves, — Homer 
especially. 

There was also a philosophic unity among the ancients. 
The whole world was God — one God; and all things in it, 
men, angels, and gods, were only parts emanating from 
it, and at certain periods returning to it. This was the 
materialism or pantheism of the Gentiles. 

"Jupiter est aer — Jupiter est ccelum," etc., was the 
language. This also was very different from the popular 
notion of the immortal gods, in whom so many believed, 
and who were, in a measure, independent of each other. 
The mysteries may have exposed much of the folly of the 
pagan idolatry, ami yet not have taught the true nature 
of the God of the Bible, which even Plato and Socrates 
BO imperfectly understood; modestly and humbly acknowl- 
edging the same, only feeling after God, "if haply they 
might find him." That the priests, politicians, and phi- 
losophers encouraged the mysteries, as teaching a purer 
morality and a higher theology, is doubtless true; and yet 
they may fall far short of the morality and divinity of the 
Bible. St. Clement, one of the fathers, says, "That the 
doctrine- delivered in the great mysteries are concerning 
the universe, and here ends all their instruction." 

Cicero tells us, that in the orgies of Samolhrace and Kleu- 
»is, the nature of things as well as of deities was set forth ; 
that is, the cosmogony, or creation of the world, as well 



346 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



as the theogony, or origin of the gods. Csesar tells ns 
that the Druids discoursed not only about the nature and 
strength of the immortal gods, but taught their pupils 
" many tilings about the stars, and the universe, and the 
nature of things." The cosmogony and theogony of all 
nations were mixed tip together ; and so it should have 
been, for God made all things that were made, though he 
made not some things that were imputed to him, and 
which had no existence but in the imaginations of men. 
Such were the no-o-ods of the heathen world. 

"No doubt the origin of the universe was taught, but how 
far their teaching was in accordance with the Mosaic ac- 
count of it is not known. That it was something different 
from what was vulgarly received, we have no doubt. St. 
Augustine says, " There were many truths which it was 
inconvenient to the state to be generally known ; and 
many things which, though false, it was expedient the 
people should generally believe; therefore the Greeks shut 
up their mysteries in the silence of their sacred enclosures." 
Cicero says, to one of the initiated, "Remember what you 
have been taught in the mysteries, then you will at length 
understand how far this matter may be carried ; " that is, 
"how far these things may be divulged to the people." 

Herodotus sometimes speaks very freely of the follies 
of the Grecians in their stories and worship ; and on one 
occasion says, " In thus speaking of them, may I meet with 
indulgence from gods and heroes," that is, the greater and 
the lesser gods. Yet in another place he says, in speaking 
of their great god Pan, " Why they represent him in such 
a way I had rather not mention." 

In his history of Egypt he is yet more careful. Speak- 
ing of the blows the priests inflicted on themselves at the 
great festival of Bubastis, he says, " But for whom they 
thus beat themselves, it were impious for me to divulge." 
Again, speaking of a certain tomb at Sais, he says, "I con- 





THE PAGAN MYSTEPJES. 



347 



ftider it impious to divulge it on such an occasion," that is, 
whose torn I) it was. 

Let us therefore hope that the unknown God, of whom 
St. Paul speaks as being worshipped at Athens in one of 
the temples dedicated to him, and to whom in Athens and 
elsewhere various temples were erected and inscribed, may 
have been the one who is so mysteriously spoken of in 
their celebrations, and who was, as he says, "ignorantly 
worshipped." But we must also remember that St. Paul 
connects superstition with it. 

But whatever may be the fact as to the doctrine taught 
in the greater mysteries concerning the unity of God, 
there can be no room for doubt that the deluge was a lead- 
ing circumstance commemorated, and a moral change the 
leading doctrine taught. To these things we now direct 
the reader's attention. 

In the Egyptian mysteries of Osiris, Plutarch and others 
speak of the ark as a leading symbol in the ceremonies. 
The long-robed priests used to carry it about, and within 
it was a small golden boat. Euschius tells us, that in cele- 
brating the mysteries of the Cabiri, who were supposed 
to be the eight persons saved from the deluge, the Phoeni- 
cians used a consecrated ark. Clemens says that a sim- 
ilar ark was used by the Corybantes Cabiri, on Mount 
Olympus. I'n the mysteries of Bacchus a sacred ark was 
used to keep the symbols in the celebration. Several an- 
cient writers mention a golden ark, of wonderful anti- 
quity, in tin- temple of I'elu-. in llabyloti. These arc only 
a few of the numerous instances of the use of the ark in 
the mysteries of the ancient nations. 

The restoration of one .supposed to be Xoah from the 
ark is also a leading feature in these mysteries. His re- 
turn to light, after having been shot up in darkness for so 
long a period, is intended to show the translation from 
darkness and ignorance to light and knowledge on the 



348 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



part of the novitiate, who is afterward one of the illumi- 
nated. There was a small door resembling that of the 
ark, through which they entered the cavern or hall of cele- 
bration, and through which they came out again. In some 
of the celebrations an egg was much used — the celebrated 
egg of the Eastern mythology — floating in a vessel of 
water, emblematic of Noah's ark, and out of which he was 
hatched or born into a new world. 

Mr. Byrant, in his learned work on the pagan mytholog}", 
says, " All the mysteries of the pagan world seem to be 
memorials of the deluge, and of the events immediately 
succeeding. They consisted, for the most part, of a melan- 
choly process, and were celebrated at night with torches, 
in commemoration of the state of darkness in which the 
patriarch and his family had been involved. The first 
thing done at these awful meetings was to administer an 
oath to the initiated. The ceremony began with a descrip- 
tion of chaos, or the deluge. The sad necessity by which 
the earth was reduced to the chaotic state was commemo- 
rated. They then celebrated Chronos, through whom the 
world, after a term of darkness, enjoyed again a pure and 
serene sky." 

In these mysteries, after the people had for a time 
bewailed the loss of a particular person, he was supposed 
to be restored to life, and these words are used by him : 
"I have escaped a sad calamity ; my lot is greatly mend- 
ed." On that occasion an invocation is made to a door, 
which is supposed to be presented to view. " Hail to the 
door — the restorer of light," is said or sung. The person 
supposed to be found is Osiris, the Egyptian god, and, as 
is believed, none other than Noah. The ark, says Mr. 
Bryant, in these mysteries, is represented in the shape of 
a crescent, or new moon. Hence a new moon is a type 
of the ark, and the moon is regarded by the Egyptians as 
the mother of all beings. After Osiris is supposed to be 



THE PAGAX MYSTERIES. 



349 



lost for some time, they go in quest of him. The priests 
go down to the river, carrying the vessel in which is the 
golden boat. Into this they pour some of the river-water, 
when a shout of joy is raised, and Osiris is supposed to be 
found. He agrees with Mr. Faber in considering the 
mysteries of the Cabiri as instituted in honor of Noah and 
his three sons. Noah was sometimes called Sadyk, or 
the just man; and his sons, Dioscori or Cabiri. Some- 
times they were called Heliadae, or offspring of the sun; 
at others, offspring of the ocean, because»saved out of the 
ocean, lie (Sadyk) was called Saturn, because he was 
the oldest of men, and father of mankind. lie is said to 
have had three sons and three daughters, and to have once 
concealed them all in an insular cavern in the midst of 
the sea. 

Noble gifts wore said to have been bequeathed to man- 
kind by the Cabiri, who were considered as great and 
beneficent gods. They were the emne who among the 
Jews were called Biud, or Baalim, and who, together with 
the luminaries of heaven, were called the host of heaven, 
and were Boinetimcs worshipped by them. Perhaps it 
was one of the arts of the wicked one to persuade the Jews 
they were only honoring their great ancestors, Noah and 
his sons, and that they might still worship with them the 
great Jehovah. 

In the cities "I' Syria, wc arc told that Sadyk, or Sat- 
urn, was represented with four eyes; two looking back 
to the old world, and two forward to the new. The 
doable-faced JailUS at Koine was probably Noah; looking 
forward and backward — "the child of the old world 
and the orphan of the new," as has been said of him. 

In Saniothrace, the mysteries of the Cabiri were cele- 
brated wiih peculiar interest. The history of that place 
was intimately connected with an ark and deluge. The 
Cubiri were said to be the burden of the first ship, the 



350 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



celebrated Argo or Argha of mycologists. The Cabiric 
deities were thought to preside over navigation, and those 
who were initiated into these mysteries were supposed to 
be secured against the perils of the sea. 

" The same," says Mr. Faber, " may be said of the mys- 
teries of the Druids. They are full of the ark and the 
arkite God. The watchwords of the mysteries all point to 
the loss and recovery of some one from a place of dark- 
ness called Hades." At the close of the mysteries the 
initiated cry out, "We have found him! let us rejoice 
together." After a certain ceremony with the image of a 
dead man, the priests chaunt the above words. 

Let us hear what Bishop Warbnrton, the great cham- 
pion of the mysteries, as teaching the unity of God and a 
high system of morals and religion, says in relation to 
them. In favor of their teaching the divine unity, he 
quotes the following passage from Plutarch: "It was a 
most ancient opinion delivered down from the legislators 
and divines, the poets and philosophers — the authors of it 
entirely unknown, but the belief of it entirely established, 
not only in tradition and the talk of the vulgar, but in the 
mysteries and sacred offices of religion, both among Greeks 
and barbarians, spread all over the face of the globe — 
that the universe was not upheld fortuitously, without 
mind, reason, or a governor to preside over its revolu- 
tions." Though this does not exactly come up to the Mo- 
saic account, yet it is strong testimony in behalf of the 
system. The bishop also quotes Virgil as giving very de- 
cisive testimony in his behalf. It is generally admitted, 
notwithstanding Gibbon's ingenious argument to the con- 
trary, that Virgil, in his sixth book of the JEnead — a book 
written at a time when the secrecy of the mysteries had 
ceased to be held so sacred — gives us a picture of the in- 
itiation into these doctrines, in describing the descent of 
^Eneas into Hades in search of his father, Anchises. Bish- 



THE PAGAX MYSTERIES. 



351 



op Warburton, as well as others, gives a full analysis of 
this; and it would aid the youthful student of Virgil, to 
examine some of these sketches before making the de- 
scent. At the close of the whole, the nnity of God, such 
as it is, is set forth. Tlie shade of Anchises thus discloses 
it to JEneas : 

" Piinoipio, coolum, et terras, camposque liquentes, 
Lueentem que glolmui luna:, Titania a^tra, 
Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus 
Mens agitat nmlem et magno se corpore miscet 
Unde hominum pecuJnm que genus," etc. 

Although we have something in the above which resem- 
bles the Mosaic account, yet when the poet speaks of the 
spirit, or deity, mixing himself up with all things, we can- 
not but see much of that pantheism which identifies the 
deity with all things, but does not make him the creator 
of all thing*. 

In behalf of the doctrine of the divine unity being 
taught in the mysteries, Warburton introduces one of the 
Orphic hymns, sung in their celebrations, which is more 
to the point : 

" Look at the divine nature! incessantly contemplate 
itl He is one, ami of himself alone ; and to that one all 
things owe their l><-ing. lie operates through all, was never 
seen by mortal eyes, hot does himself see all things." 

As to their inculcation of a holier life than was required 
either by philosophers or priests, ho says, "These myste- 
ries were only for a select number, who would prepare 
themselves for it by holy exercises, fastinc, and penance." 
It was taught that the initiated might be happier than 
others in a future state; that the sonls of the profane 
stuck fast in tilth and mire on leaving the body, while 
those of the initiated soared to the habitation! of gods. 
But a holy life was also necessary. The doctrine of the 



352 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



fall of man was certainly set forth. The object of the 
mysteries was to restore the soul to its primitive state by 
a new birth or regeneration, which was set forth by the 
birth of one from the ark into a new world. But in order 
to the initiation, previous holiness — consisting in prayer 
and penances and trials — -must be had. This, the 
bishop acknowledges, was not always the case; for after 
a time "all men ran to be initiated," — that "a premium 
was charged for initiation," — that " many thought it as 
necessary as some did baptism, and even put it off until 
death," as Constantine did baptism. After a time chil- 
dren were initiated ; for Terence says, in his day it was 
customary to initiate children, calling it "natalis dies ubi 
initiabant." Warburton admits that by reason of their 
secrecy they became most corrupt, one and all of them. 
The Eleusinian mysteries were the last that retained any- 
thing good in them ; and he acknowledges that much of 
St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans was directed against 
their abominations. All of the mysteries became so 
abominable that they were the subject of ridicule on the 
public stage, and were at length required to be put down 
by public authority. 

But then, he says, the Christians abused their vigils and 
nocturnal feasts in like manner, and were obliged to dis- 
continue them. He should have remembered, however, 
that this last was of necessit} 7 , not choice, by reason of 
the persecutions of the heathen, which would not allow 
them in the day-time, for these purposes. It must be ad- 
mitted, notwithstanding all the subsequent abuses, that 
for a long time the wisest and best of the ancients ap- 
proved of them, as having a good object in view, aud 
producing a good effect. Socrates commends them be- 
cause they taught the initiated to entertain the " most 
agreeable expectations concerning death and eternity." 
Plato makes Socrates speak of the author of them as well 



THE PAG AX MYSTERIES. 



353 



skilled in human nature ; and yet Socrates was never in- 
itiated, for reasons that none of the moderns can make 
known, and none of the ancients have revealed. 

Whoever would see the process through which the 
cepopto, or aspirant, must go in order to he initiated, must 
consult Faber, Warburton, or Bryant. Suffice it to say, 
that whatever could be done by alternate darkness and 
light, sweet sounds and discordant ones, lovely and dismal 
scenes, hymns and songs, gods and goddesses passing in 
review before the eyes — things, as one said, "most hor- 
rible and most ravishingly pleasant" — were adopted in or- 
der to frighten and delight. The first stage, says War- 
burton, is nothing but error and uncertainties. The latter 
part, of course, is delightful. The initiated is made to say, 
" On us only does the orb of day shine benignantly ; we 
only receive pleasure from its beams." 

Id reading these descriptions, we are reminded of a pas- 
sage in one of the apocryphal books sometimes bound up 
in the Bible. In Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of the Son 
of Birach, we read, "Wisdom exalteth her children, and 
laveth hold of them that seek her; for at the first she will 
walk with him by crooked ways, and bring fear and dread 
upon him, and torment him with her discipline, until she 
may trust his soul and try him by her laws. Then will 
she return by a straight way unto him, and comfort him, 
ami show him her secrets." 

1 conclude this chapter by a brief and friendly reference 
to a BCCret Bociety -till existing among us, of very ancient 
date, which -nine of the most zealous of its advocates trace 
up to the great master -builder Solomon, some to a still 
higher date, who may indeed have some historical connec- 
tion with the builders of Mabel, or the Cyclopean archi- 
tects of Europe, or the Toltecs of America — I allude to the 

society of Freemasons. Mr. Faber says it is probably a 
fragment of those orgies which have prevailed all the 
■J.-J 



354 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



world over, and have come to us through the Knights 
Templar. All the most remarkable buildings of Greece, 
Egypt, and Asia Minor have been ascribed to the Cabi- 
rian or Cyclopean architects, and the present Freemasons 
claim it as their privilege to preside over the commence- 
ment of great buildings. The mysterious concealments 
of the moderns, who act on the principle of one of the 
philosophers of old, "that people despise what is easy and 
intelligible, and call for something that is mysterious and 
wonderful," seems to connect them with the ancient mys- 
teries. Some of the initiated are said also to have been as 
much frightened and overcome by the terrific scenes which 
must be passed through, as were the oepopto ; but not being 
one of the favored number myself, I must not tread on for- 
bidden ground, but remember the words of the old Orphic 
poet — 

" To these alone I speak, whom nameless rites 
Have rendered meet to listen. Close the doors 
And carefully exclude each wretch profane, 
Lest impious curiosity pollute 
Our sacred orgies." 

If 1 may be allowed to express an opinion, neither the 
good nor evil of these associations equals the praise or blame 
of their friends or foes. They were established with good 
intent, and are often conducted so as to effect good. 
Though they, like their ancient prototypes, have often 
been abused to evil, within my knowledge to intemper- 
ance in some localities, I believe they are now in a Com- 
paratively pure state. I am happy to be assured that the 
Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, is not only the 
rule and square by which, but the rock upon which, they 
purpose to build. So long as they adhere to this, and so far 
as they thus act, they must do good. Let their charity be 
the love which exalts the Creator and the created, the 
Redeemer and the redeemed, and all must wish them w T ell. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



ON THE PHILOSOPHERS OF GREECE AND ROME. 

An eminent writer on the uncient philosophy well re- 
marks, that "Four centuries of Greece (a little speck on 
the globe, containing a few cities on either side of a narrow 
sea, with a few 6mall islands between) contained the 
whole universe of mind."* This memorable period begins 
with the philosopher Thales, who died about 448 years 
before Christ, being eighty-six years of age. Herodotus, 
the earliest historian of Greece whose work survives, 
flourished about 450 years before Christ. His work, di- 
vided into nine books, with the names of the nine muses, 
gives us some account of the primitive state of Greece. 
Butler calls him " the Homer of Greece without his 
poetry,' 1 but his prose was called " Musa pedestris," or, 
in modern phrase, "Prose run mad." Not much credit is 
given to some of his marvellous narratives, though recent 
investigations have raised his character as an historian. 
The patriarchal or kingly government evidently was the 
first form in Greece, as, of necessity, in all other countries. 
Hie father, or patriarch, was looked up to by his children 
and children's children. Before the establishment of a 

• " fliftory of Ancient Philonophy," by William Archer Butler, M. A., Profes- 
nor of Mnrnl I'hibxophy in the I'nivrrMly of Dublin, with Note* by Professor 

I I iptOO, of Cambridge, delivered in the year 184& To this book, to the 

learned I'udworth's work*, and to Mr. I.eland'it book on the " Advantages of 
Revelation," the author is chiefly indebted for the contents of this chapter. 



356 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



regular priesthood, lie was their priest and virtually their 
king. 

" Rex Anius, rex hominum, divum que sacerdos." 

After a time, with the increase of numbers and the en- 
largement of territory, the kingly government gave way 
to the democratic throughout Greece generally. " De- 
mocracy," says Butler, " made Greece never tranquil, but 
always brilliant." It was during this period that a suc- 
cession of men, called philosophers, carried the efforts and 
researches of the human mind to the utmost extent of 
their capacity unaided by revelation. It was a modest 
name which they assumed ; the philosopher meant only a 
lover of wisdom, he did not assume the title of magus, or 
the wise man, or sage, but only of one who was in love 
with wisdom, and sought it in all lands and in all ways 
by which it could be obtained. Originally it was sophoi, 
or wise men, — afterward philosophoi, or lovers of wis- 
dom. Pythagoras was the first who took that modest 
title. That many of the philosophers were most anxious 
to find out the truth, as to religion and morals, who can 
question that reads their writings? ISTo doubt they sought 
assistance from God or the gods, so far as they supposed 
assistance from above could be given as to the attainment 
of wisdom. 'Plato held that philosophic "truth was reached 
by a course of protracted previous meditation, and of anx- 
ious mental conflict." So superior were their views of 
God and truth to those of mankind in general, that there 
has ever been a tendency to believe in a kind of semi- 
inspiration or providential guidance of their faculties not 
clearly distinguishable from revelation. Some of the fa- 
thers seemed disposed to trace the wisdom of Plato to a 
higher source, and regard him as the apostle of the Gen- 
tiles, to prepare the way for Christ. One of them calls 
him "Moses in the dialect of Attica," and thinks that in 



OX THE PHILOSOPHERS. 



357 



his travels and his intercourse with the Hebrew scriptures 
and doctrines, and in his great reverence for the highest 
antiquity and the most ancient poets, he obtained his su- 
perior wisdom and deserved that name. But we shall 
soon see how far his wisdom came short of that of the 
least in the kingdom which was set up by Christ a few 
centuries after. 

Let us take, in their order, some of the leaders in that 
" universe of mind," which is said to have been confined to 
about four centuries, beginning with Thales and ending 
with the disciples of Socrates, and whose effect has been 
felt in the civilized world ever since Plato. 

THALES. 

We begin with Thales, the great mathematician, as- 
tronomer, and theologian of his day. He is supposed to 
have died in his ninety-sixth year, about 548 years 
before the Christian era. 1 1 is main doctrine was, that 
water (chaos, perhaps) was the basis or principle of all 
things, but that God was the mind that formed all things 
out of it. Of course he held the previous and eter- 
nal existence of matter, — that is, water or chaos, lie 
Bbo held that God himself was unmade; also, that the 
world itself is full of gods, — that is, good angels, who 
were made by Cod instead of being mere dead matter. 
Now this wa.-, a irr< -at advance toward truth, or rather a 
large step backward to primitive truth and revelation. 

PYTHAGORAS. 

Next to Thales came Pythagoras, the philosopher of 
Samos, who travelled for forty years through all the na- 
tions in search of wisdom, and who loved to hear and 
see so much more than to talk. He died about 498 years 



358 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



before Christ, and fifty-two after Thales. His doctrine 
was divided into two parts ; exoteric or public, and eso- 
teric or private. He was afraid to proclaim bis whole 
system or counsels. According to Cicero, he believed 
that God was the soul of the world ; that every human 
soul was a portion of Cod. He had some idea of a trin- 
ity of gods, which Plato afterward improved upon until 
it became more like the trinity of scripture. Cod, he said, 
was the active principle in nature, and which he called 
monad. The passive principle in nature he called duad, 
and the world which was formed by these he called triad. 
While he believed in one supreme universal Numen, 
whom he called Zeus, or Jupiter, and who was the oldest 
of all things because unmade, he also believed in many 
inferior deities, among whom were the sun, moon, and 
stars, heroes and demons ; but they were not all to receive 
equal honor. Of course he was a polytheist. One of his 
followers has ascribed to him the following view of Jupi- 
ter's supremacy, and the instrumentality of good demons : 
"Jupiter alme, malis jubeas vel salvier omnes omnibus 
utanter, vel quonam dsemone monstra," — that is, Jupiter 
should either command that all men be released from evil, 
or show by some demon how they must be used. Pythag- 
oras was also the great advocate and teacher of the uni- 
versal doctrine of the transmigration of souls, declaring 
that he himself had passed through many such changes. 

He was also a great devotee to music, and said that the 
spheres, or heavenly bodies, in their motions made music, 
with which the gods were delighted. " The music of the 
spheres" is, we suppose, an expression that may be traced 
to this source. 

SOCRATES. 

Next in the order of time comes the wise and good Soc- 
rates, who sought to allure the minds of men from vain 



OX THE PHILOSOPHERS. 



359 



speculations about the universe, and motion, and the gods, 
to morals and practical religion. The morals of the Gre- 
cians were very corrupt in his day. His great disciple, 
Plato, said, " that God alone could save the young men 
of his day from ruin ;" and again, "any soul that escapes 
the common wreck, can only escape by the favor of 
Heaven." The examples of the supposed gods greatly 
promoted this. Socrates, therefore, either rejected the 
gods of the poets, or denied that they were guilty of the 
actions and vices imputed to them, lie was not, as some 
have said, a martyr to the divine unity, but was con- 
demned for rejecting the traditions which ascribed such 
scandalous accounts to the gods. Plato makes him say, 
" Can you in good earnest think that there are wars and 
contentions among the gods, and that those other things 
were done by them which poets and painters impute to 
them?" In proof that he complied with the religion of 
the Greeks, and acknowledged the existence of the gods, 
he sacrificed a cock to Esculapius just before his death, 
and offered up a prayer to the gods for a happy transla- 
tion, lie believed in one God, supreme above all others ; 
that he was the wise artificer by whom the world was 
made; that he was a lover (if all animals, — that is, all 
having life and being capable of pain or pleasure ; that 
he 8MB and knows all things; that the mind of man is 
only a part of a great mind, as the body is only a small 
part of the great mass of nature. Put he also believed in 
many inferior gods, who wen; a kind of body corporate, 
members one of another. Socrates, like Plato and most 
of the philosophers, identifies the gods. " E pluribus 
miti in, et I lium e pluribus," was their doctrine and lan- 
guage. Thus Socrates said, shortly before his death, " If 
the god.s will have it so," and yet immediately after this 
he .-.-lid, " It' God will have il (iod, in the language 

of the heathen philosophers, is sometimes called "The 



360 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



One," "The Good." "The Supreme." But it is just as 
" the government" is used to signify all the officers of the 
government, viz., the king or chief ruler, and all those 
connected with them. Socrates, however, is very clear in 
regarding him as the immaterial Governor of all things. 
In his " Memorabilia," he says, " As the soul is known by 
its operations, so God is known by his works." 

PLATO. 

Plato was born about 428 years before Christ. His 
doctrines, though somewhat corrupted, have been better 
preserved than most others, from having been commit- 
ted to writing. His works are the result not only of 
deep thinking and much travelling, but of the reflections 
and opinions of all the philosophers which had gone be- 
fore him. He was called the Divine Plato, because his 
views were so pure and lofty. He was also called the 
" Homer of Philosophers," because of his enthusiastic and 
figurative style. As to his views of the deity, he believed 
in one architypal animal or being, viz., God. All things 
were formed according to it, and by it. This Being, which 
he calls " God over all "— " the first God "— " the greatest 
• God"- — " The sovereign mind which passes through all 
things " — " who always was, and was never made " — 
" by him the things of the world were made, where they 
were not before." " The world," he says, " was made by 
Gocl, and was the best of all his works, and he the best of 
causes." 

But while he held that there was only one self-existent, 
eternal God, who made the world, he also held that the 
world he made was God, and eternal, proceeding from 
the eternal God. He calls the world " an intellectual ani- 
mal ;" says that " the heavenly bodies were visible and 
generated gods." The earth he considered the oldest and 



OX THE PHILOSOPHERS. 



361 



best of all the gods thus generated — the principal one. 
But, to use the language of another, " While none can 
fail to read on Plato's pages the main lineaments of the 
divine character, single, scriptural, and supreme, yet the 
same page is filled with a multitudinous throng of gods 
and demons. The inferior deities were only deputies of 
the supreme framer and ruler of all." lie calls them 
"subordinate gods, co-governors and co-reigners with the 
supreme God," according to the whole tenor of the pagan 
theology, in which the gods are identified with the su- 
preme God, and co-workers with him. 

The demons he called "junior gods," who appeared 
and disappeared at pleasure. Cudworth, his great ad- 
mirer, sa3's, "Plato sometimes speaks jestingly of these 
generated gods, ' as being without demonstration or even 
probability. ' " lie also speaks in one place as though 
Plato's recognition of these gods was only in compliance 
witli public opinion ; and, perhaps, to avoid the same fate 
with Socrates. This opinion, however, cannot be sustain- 
ed ; for Socrates nowhere denied the existence of these 
gods, but that they were not guilty of the vices imputed 
to them. In relation to the supreme God, as well as the 
inferior ones, even the greatest of them, Plato says that 
there is, strictly speaking, no incorporeal god, or pure 
spirit, such as we understand by spirit ; that he must have 
some subtile, ctherial body, else the world would be like 
a vacuum or empty space. Put while Plato separated 
God from common matter, he held that matter existed 
from all eternity — proceeded from the eternal God. God 
did not make the world out of nothing, as the scripturo 
declares, but out of something already existing, which 
he fashioned into the world. He denies what some of tho 
ancients held, that there was something evil in matter 
itself. 

His doctrine was, that a soul endued with all virtue, 



362 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



moves the world, — that is, God ; but that " an irrational 
soul or demon got into matter, and moved it in a disor- 
derly manner ;" that " the generation of this world is 
mixed and made up of a certain composition of mind and 
necessity, yet so as that mind must rule over necessity." 
He maintains that evil cannot be utterly destroyed in this 
lower world, which is the region of lapsed souls. " Where- 
fore," he says, "we ought to flee from hence as speedily 
as possible ; and our flight from hence is this, — to assim- 
ilate ourselves unto God as much as may be ; which as- 
similation consists in being holy and just, with wisdom." 
As to the creation of man, he says, " God made man and 
all things," but speaks of an old tradition of man's being 
originally of both sexes, or hermaphroditic ; and yet there 
is a passage in his writings which would show him to be 
in much doubt on the subject. 

In his sixth book of laws, he says, " Either the present 
generation of men had no beginning at all, and will have 
no end, or else there has been an inestimable length of 
time since its beginning." Cudworth thinks that when 
he wrote this he must have been in his dotage, or else has 
written through fear of others. 



plato's doctrine of providence. 

In nothing do the ancient philosophers and mytholo- 
gists differ more from the Bible, than in their views of 
providence. There were those who, though affirming the 
existence of God, and that he made the world and all 
things therein, yet held that he only established certain 
laws at their first formation, and then retired, as it were, 
to a distance, to a state of repose, and only came on cer- 
tain great occasions to superintend and correct. " Nec 
Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus," was the motto 



OX THE PHILOSOPHERS. 



363 



of poets and philosophers. Plato wrote against all such 
infidels and atheists in his day. 

"Whoever," he says, " had any degree of seriousness or 
sobriety in them when they took in hand any enterprise, 
whether great or small, would always invoke the deity's 
assistance and direction."' Whether by the deity here 
spoken of he meant the one eternal God, or the com- 
pound of all the deities, is not stated. He held, however, 
that notwithstanding this providence of God, some things 
were subject to fate or necessity. 

lie gives us the following passage from an ancient 
poet: "0 Jupiter, king! give us good things whether 
we pray or pray not for them, but withhold evil things 
from us, though we pray for them ever so earnestly." 

plato's understanding of the plastic or creative 
power of nature. 

On no subject does he speak more sensibly and satis 
factorily than on this mode of acting by the divine archi 
tect of all things, which so many of the ancient, philoso 
pliers and modern infidels substitute for God himself. 
Plato wrote a book against the atheists of his day, saying, 
"There always were some sick of this disease :" they de- 
nied that there was a God who was the working principle, 
or agent in all tilings, and substituted what they called 
the plastic power or principle, " which, without the help 
of God, was ever working things" to certain ends. The 
philosophy of Des Cartes, during the last century, was only 
the revival of the doctrine of atoms revolving themselves 
into certain forms or bodies, and was substantially this 
atheistic system, and of which, it is to be feared, there is 
still much in the minds of some. 

Plato's doctrine was, that the mind, or God, together 
with nature, was the author of the universe; that nature, 



364: 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



according to reason and by it, — that is, God, — ordains all 
things. He speaks of the deity as using certain causes, 
and making them subservient to himself. That which 
we call nature, said some of his followers, is the offspring 
of a higher soul, which hath a more powerful life in it. 
This was, perhaps, what Ovid meant by " Deus et melior 
natura." That, then, which we call nature, or working na- 
ture, is something which obeys the deity without under- 
standing why or for what purpose it is acting, — as the in- 
stincts of animals having no perception or enjoyment. 

AKISTOTLE. 

Aristotle, — called the Stagyrite, from Stagyra, the place 
of his birth, — was a disciple of Plato. He was born 
about 384 years before Christ. Plato called him " The 
mind of the school." When he was absent, Plato would 
say, " The intellect is not here." He was a pupil of Pla- 
to's for twenty years, — indeed, until Plato's death. 

Aristotle was the chosen tutor of Alexander the Great 
chosen by his father Philip, who, on writing to the phi- 
losopher, said, u I am thankful to the gods not more for 
his birth, than that he was born in the same age with you." 
He formed a new sect in opposition to the Academy — 
the school of Socrates and Plato. A grove near Athens 
was his place of instruction. In this he used to walk 
about while teaching ; hence his disciples were called 
Peripatetics. He was the great logician of his age, and 
his works on this subject are still held in high esteem. 
He died at the age of sixty-three. As to his theology, he 
believed in one God, who ordered all things, and called 
him "the first immovable Mover." Whereas some affirmed 
that the elements were the first and oldest of all things, 
he said, " It is more reasonable to suppose that mind is 
the oldest and first, and has a most princely and sovereign 



\ 



ON THE PHILOSOPHERS. 365 

dominion over all ; that God was the mind that willed 
all things, and that everything had been disposed in the 
wisest and best manner." As to the lesser gods, which 
he called "the divinity," he said, "The divinity was 
either God, or the work of God." He rejected the doc- 
trine of self-made or self-existent gods. He divided the 
heavens into forty-seven spheres, over which the gods 
presided. He agreed with Homer, that the "government 
of many is not good ; therefore, there is one prince or 
monarch over all.'' He says, "It has heen delivered to us 
from ancient times, that the stars also were deities, be- 
sides that one great God who presides over nature and 
contains the whole of nature. All other things, he declares, 
" are fabulous, and used to satisfy the multitude, and for 
the utility of human life, and to teach men obedience to 
civil laws." 

Aristotle also speaks of some ancient writer, who, be- 
sides the material cause of the world, assigned an efficient 
cause of motion, namely, Love. To this we have before 
alluded as being one of the earliest and most amiable 
mythological notions and traditions, corresponding with 
St. John's declaration, that "God is love." 

u:k iri-i s and OKMocunrs. 

We come now to the philosophers who succeeded Soc- 
rates, Plato, and Aristotle, and in whom we iind a great 
falling off. An atheism, more entire and dangerous than 
that which Plato assailed, appeared in the philosophers 
Leucippus and DemocritUS. Of the country, birth, and 
death of the former, all is uncertainty. He was the in- 
structor of Deiuocritus, the laughing philosopher. The 
hitter lived to the age of one hundred and nine, dying 
about .'3<!1 years before the ( 'hristian era. He was born 
only forty-two years after Plato. He ami his teacher 



366 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



survived the doctrine of atoms, and perverted it to atheis- 
tic purposes. He believed that the soul died with the 
body, and that there was no such being as God. He 
laughed at the follies of men who were distracting them- 
selves about God and a future state. He believed that 
the basis of all things was infinitessimal particles of mat- 
ter, which, by a fortuitous concourse, form themselves 
into all the bodies of the universe. In a few words, his 
system taught that there were only three things in the 
world : atoms, vacuum, and the combinations of atoms. « 

EPICTXRTTS AJSTD HIS FOLLOWERS. 

Epicurus died about 270 years before Christ, and in the 
seventy-second year of his age. His doctrines have been 
popular in all ages and to great numbers, because so grati- 
fying to the lovers of ease and pleasure. Rome was cor- 
rupted by his tenets, as were many other places, from 
which, after some years, his followers were banished on 
account of their pernicious principles and examples. The 
old Roman, Fabricius, is said to have entreated the gods 
that all the enemies of his country might be followers of 
Epicurus, thinking he could wish them no greater evil. 

The infidel poet, Lucretius, completed the work of ruin 
— on the morals of Rome — by translating the works of 
Epicurus into his fascinating verse. It is not too severe a 
criticism upon his principles to say, "As well have no 
god, as the god of Epicurus," who took no cognizance of 
human affairs, leaving men to their own choice and mode 
of seeking happiness. " Let us eat and drink, for to-mor- 
row we die," is the sum and substance of his teaching. 
A great intellect in our own country has said, " I believe 
in the providence of God, and leave to Epicurus, and his 
more unreasonable followers in modern times, the incon- 



OX THE PHILOSOPHERS. 



367 



sistency of believing that God made a world which he 
does not take the trouble to govern." * 

ZEXO THE STOIC. 

Zeno, the founder of the Stoic sect, died about 264 
years before Christ, at the age of ninety-eight. His sect 
and doctrines were, in most respects, the very opposite of 
those of Epiou r us. They were strict in their mode of liv- 
ing, endeavoring to make light of pain and trouble, — 
some of them saying " that pain was a mere idea." 

His chief followers and supporters were Cleanthus and 
Chrysippus. They were materialists ; believing also that 
the souls of men were actual emanations of the deity — 
parts of the eternal God. Though they believed in one 
great God, they said the world was full of gods, who 
would one day be destroyed by fire. They compared the 
doctrine of future punishment to old women's stories, used 
to frighten children. It seems, from the manner of his 
(h ath, that he did not fear then himself. u Walking out 
of his school one day, he fell down and broke one of his 
lingers, at which he was >■> affected," says one of the an- 
cients, "that he struck the earth, exclaiming, 'I am 
coming. Why callest thou me?' he then went home and 
strangled himself." 

MARCl'S TILLIES CICERO. 

II is history and his writings are so familiar to those for 
whose benefit, chiefly, this volume is written, that a vcrv 
brief notice of him will suffice. Voluminous as were his 
writing.*, yet, it is said, not more than a tenth part have 
come down to us. lie rejected the doctrines both of 
Epicurus and Zeno, and attached himself to the academy 

* Daniel Webster. 



368 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



of Athens, that .is, to the followers of Socrates and Plato. 
He held that there were two things in nature to be in- 
quired of. First, the matter out of which every thing was 
made ; and secondly, the active and efficient cause. As to 
the first, he held that matter was self-existent and eternal ; 
as to the second, he reasoned as did Socrates and Plato, 
being a theist of their school. He wrote a work on the 
" To-en" or " summum bonum," or chief good of man, 
showing the various theories among men on the subject, 
affirming that they amounted to thousands, and conclud- 
ing, " Nil tarn absurdum, quod non dictum sit ab aliquo 
philosophorum" — " Nothing so absurd which has not been 
said by some one of the philosophers." His work, " De 
Officiis," has been called " The Pagan whole duty of man." 
His treatise on the immortality of the soul is considered 
his master-piece ; and yet, as we shall see hereafter, it 
failed to satisfy himself on that subject. The very title of 
one of his books, " De ISTatura Deorum," shows that he 
was a polytheist. His alternate use of God, and the gods, 
after the manner of Socrates, Plato, and others, shows 
that he regarded the divinity as a kind of body corporate. 
His patriotism and oratory were of the highest order. To 
these he fell a victim. His severe satire on woman, " that 
there was no animal so revengeful," and his bold denun- 
ciations of Antony, brought down upon him the rage of 
Fulvia, the wife of Antony, who had his tongue drawn 
out of his mouth, while her husband had his head and 
right hand hung up in the Roman forum, which had so 
often resounded with his eloquence. 



SENECA. 

Seneca was the brightest ornament of the Stoics. It is 
said that he was acquainted with St. Paul, and that 
some letters passed between them. St. Jerome and St. 



OX THE PHILOSOPHERS. 



369 



Augu9tine quote them as genuine. They were extant in 
the time of Jerome, who speaks most favorably of them. 
He was probably born about the time of our Lord, and 
may have seen St. Paul at Kome, where he lived for two 
years as a prisoner. Seneca may have heard of St. Paul 
from Gallio, who was Seneca's own brother, — having 
changed his name on being adopted into another family. 
His morals were considered of the highest stamp of hea- 
then virtue and religion. He was a fatalist of the most 
absolute character ; saying " that one and the same chain 
of necessity binds both man and God." 

His treatise on Providence contains some of the most 
excellent things against the cavils and murmurs of men 
on account of the evils of life : and yet ends with recom- 
mending suicide to the unfortunate. 

EPICTETC8. 

He lived in the first century of the Christian era, and 
belonged to the sect of the Stoics. He wrote much and 
well on morals. The morals of Epictetus perhaps camo 
next to those of Christ, from whom, no doubt, they were 
in a great measure derived. 

Be recommended contentment, on the ground that all 
things were ordained by Providence; but, when wo ex- 
amine what his providence was, we find it little else than 
stern necessity, or fate. And yet, so superior were the mor- 
als and religion of Plato, Tally, and Epictetus to those of 
most of the iincicnts, that, at a certain period, the moral- 
izing clergy of England and Scotland used then so freely 
as to deserve the severe criticism of Cowper : 

"How oft, wlien Pnnl has so r veil us witli a text, 
Hfifl Plato, Tully, Epictetus preached." 
24 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

ON PLUTARCH, AND THE OTHER PHILOSOPHERS. 

"Wishing to do ample justice to the philosophers, believ- 
ing that God made use of them, not merely to show the 
insufficiency of human reason to find out the knowledge 
of himself, but also to remove much error from the minds 
of many, and to prepare the way for the reception of the 
truth, as seen in the religion of Christ, we shall dwell, a 
little longer on the opinions and character of Plutarch 
than we have done on those of any other. If Plato gave 
us the result of the intellectual efforts of all who went 
before him, as well as of his own, Plutarch added to them 
not only those of Plato, but of all those between Plato 
and himself, and at a time when unbelieving philos- 
ophers could not shut out from their minds all of the rays 
of light coming down from the true Sun of Righteousness. 
Plutarch was eminently a religious philosopher, accord- 
ing to the light which he had ; and a pure moralist, ac- 
cording to a high standard. He was born at Chseronea, 
an humble city Boeotia, about the middle of the first cen- 
tury of the Christian era. He endeavored to make him- 
self useful in that place, in all civil and religious affairs. 
He acted as one of the priests of Apollo, and sought to 
promote piety among the people of his native place. 

His benevolence displayed itself towards all objects in 
nature which were capable of pain or pleasure. Con- 
demning Cato's treatment of his old servants, he said, " I 



0>T PLUTARCH, ETC. 



371 



would not even sell an old ox that bad labored for me, 
much less cast off a man who had grown old in my ser- 
vice." lie argues in favor of the lower animals having 
souls, and even reasoning powers ; and considers eating 
their flesh as cannibalism. He believed, with Pythagoras, 
in the transmigration of souls ; and this made him not 
only kind to brutes, but even to abstain from all animal 
food. He was, in one sense, most catholic in his religion. 
Though renouncing many of the superstitions of his day, 
he yet held that there was essential truth in all religions. 
As sun, moon, earth, and sea, he says, are common to 
all, while they have different names among different 
nations, — so he thought it was with the different modes of 
worship, and deities of different nations. lie believed 
in one supreme and self-existent God ; but also, with 
Socrates and others, in some intermediate deities, who 
were the agents of divine Providence. 

The doctrines of Chance and Fate he abjured, believing 
in a special providence, which even made use of dreams 
and oracles to effect its purpose. He was a meek and 
bumble man. In his writings, says Professor Tyler, for 
the first time the word papienos (which, like the Latin 
h until ''-v, in its usual classical sense, imports meanness and 
pusilanimity) occurs in a good sense, to denote a meek 
and submissive virtue. Plutarch held that God formed 
the body out of preexistent matter, but the soul was a part 
of himself, breathed into the body, — not made, but be- 
gotten by him. As to the mode of subduing our appetites 
and passions, he held that " vows and prayers for divine 
assistance, and sacred days of fasting and abstinence, were 
important helps to a complete victory.'' His views of 
true bravery were fine. He tells the story of Zenopliancs, 
who, when called a coward because lie refused to play at 
dice, replied, " Yes, I confess myself a coward, for J dare 
not do a baae or unworthy action." 



372 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



His philanthropy and largeness of soul were exhibited 
in his quotations from Socrates, who said, u ¥e are all 
born, not Greeks, not Athenians, but citizens of the 
world, with no narrower boundaries to our country than 
the sky, and under the same supreme ruler." On the 
subject of a future state, he held that, at death, pious 
souls go to a place of unending day and unclouded glory ; 
while the wicked sink to an abode of perpetual darkness 
and oblivion, where they are punished, not as poets sing, 
C£ by vultures gnawing at their livers, and heavy burdens 
of fruitless labor oppressing their weary bodies ; but by 
ignorance and ignominy, plunging their souls into a bot- 
tomless abyss of inactivity and uselessness and obscu- 
rity." 

In his Moral ia there is one passage on the universality 
and superior importance of religion, and the belief in a 
providence, in opposition to the licentious doctrines of the 
Epicureans, which deserves, for its spirit, to be written in 
letters of gold. " Travel through the world, and you will 
find towns and cities without walls, without kings, with- 
out theatres, without gymnasiums, without money, and 
without houses ; but there never was and never will be a 
city without temples and gods, or without prayers, oaths, 
prophecies, and sacrifices, for the averting of calamities 
and curses, and for the obtaining of blessings and ben- 
efits." 

Although Plutarch may and must, to us, appear super- 
stitious, yet his book against superstition shows him to be 
a dry, sceptical philosopher, by comparison with the un- 
happy fanatics and devotees for whose benefit he wrote. 
His views of fate, and fortune, and chance, were conserva- 
tive and practical. Plutarch carefully studied the religion 
of Egypt, in its hieroglyphics and symbols, and perhaps 
learned as much of it as any other man ever did. He 
shows clearly the identity between the gods of Egypt and 



OS PLUTARCH, ETC. 



373 



Greece. He was a complete convert to the doctrine of 
two principles, — the good and the evil in the world ever 
warring against each other, the good, however, heing 
predominant. In the consolatory letter to his wife on the 
loss of a daughter, he has some fine thoughts, and some 
strong assurances as to the immortality of the soul. And 
yet, as Mr. Tyler well remarks, "how far was he from at- 
taining to that full assurance of a reunion, and a reunion 
in a hetter world, which Christianity affords the sorrow- 
ing in this sinful world !" Plutarch, like all the philoso- 
phers, though sometimes seeming to admit the fallen and 
corrupt condition of men, yet wanted the deep views of 
his sinful state such as Christianity alone presents. As to 
the atonement and free forgiveness set forth in the scrip- 
tures, we look in vain for them in his writings. 

Transmigration and purgatorial processes are the means 
of purification and future advancement. On some sub- 
jects, as, for instance, future punishment, he is inconsistent 
and contradictory. At times lie speaks of darkness and 
shame, banishment and ignorance, being the retribution 
to the wicked ; and then, again, he joins with the poets in 
supposing the most horrible tortures which God could de- 
vise. In fine, ho never speaks, as God's word alone can 
speak, with authority and with certainty. I conclude 
with the admirable words of Professor Tyler, in the last 
of his valuable articles on the life and writings of Phi- 
tareh. After giving him credit for much that his writings 
have in common with the scriptural account of natural 
and revealed religion, he says, " Put he sheds not a ray 
of light on the darkest, deepest problem in theology 
which has ever awakened the most profound solicitude in 
thoughtful and serious mind-, namely, ' How shall man 
be just with God ? ' How unspeakably great are our obli- 
gations to the authoritative testimony of Him who came 
forth from the unseen world, who was not only in the be- 



374 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



ginning with God, but who was God, and therefore had 
the right as well as the power to promulgate the precise 
and only terms of reconciliation to rebellious man ; who 
became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace as well 
as truth, and thus enabled men to hear and see and handle 
the Word of eternal life !" 

Having thus endeavored to do justice to the ancient 
philosophers by considering the sentiments of the most 
prominent among them from the time of Thales to Plu- 
tarch, a period of seven hundred years, and these the most 
enlightened of all the ages of the world's history, as 
known to us, we will conclude with some of the various 
and contradictory notions which floated, a chaotic mass, 
through the world, without specifying who or how many 
entertained them. 

The great discussion among them was as to the origin 
of all things. Many, as we have already seen, main- 
tained that matter as well as mind must have been eter- 
nal. They said " Quicquid movelur, ab alio movetur." 

Of course there could be no first mover, — that is, no 
God, — since there must have been some other mover to 
move or make him, and so on, backward, eternally. 

Democritus and other atheists, therefore, were ever 
dwelling on the axiom that God could not make anything 
out of nothing, or unmake it again. It is very true that 
11 Denihillo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti" without God; 
but this is quite easy to him with whom all things are 
possible. That is the doctrine of Moses and the scrip- 
tures, as to the creation by God. Some of the philoso- 
phers, in opposition to the scriptures and Plato, held that 
there was no morality in the nature of God, that all the 
distinctions on that subject were indifferent to him ; 
whereas, Moses and all the sacred writers insist on the per- 
fect purity and holiness of God, and his abhorrence of the 
opposite. Some held that all life and all understanding, 



ON PLUTARCH, ETC. 



375 



even the gods themselves, Jupiter at the head, came out 
of matter, by what was called plastic nature, without the 
help of God. 

There were many who held, with Leucippus and De- 
mocritus, that the universe was full of small atoms, which, 
by some chance revolutions, came into the forms of the 
various bodies which are to be seen. Epicurus and De- 
mocritus held that ' ; cogitation or thought was only local 
motion." 

There were those who said " that every thing labored 
under some intestine or inward necessity ; that even God 
himself was the slave of fate." 

Some disbelieved the existence of anything that could 
not be seen and felt. 

Some, as Empedocles, held that God was not the author 
or maker of the world, but only " a holy and ineffable 
mind, which, by swift thought, agitates the whole world." 

Many, perhaps the most of them, held that the whole 
world was God ; others, that he was the soul of the 
world. 

Some held that matter was eternal, yet that it proceed- 
ed from (iod us an emanation ; ju«t as light, though coeval 
with the sun, yet proceeds from it eternally. 

Some blasphemous and silly atheists maintained that 
there was no life or understanding above, around, or any- 
where else in the world, but in ourselves; that we were 
the highest of all beings; we were the g'>ds. Others de- 
nied that God could have made all things, " because some 
were BO badly made." 

Some of t lie materialists held the eternity and self-exist- 
ence of matter, haying, that "if God had made it out of 
nothing, it would have been perfect, like himself; whereas, 
it was unmanageable." An ancient poet, however, main- 
tains that 11 the world was good, for that God made it as 
like to himself as possible." He was not far from Moses, 



376 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



who tells us that when God had made all things, he pro- 
nounced them very good, man being made after the 
" image of God." 

-Proclns says, "If the whole world be a happy God, then 
none of the parts are godless, or without God." " The 
heavenly bodies," he says, " having particular souls and 
minds, partake of the one soul and mind. It is the same, 
also, with the elements." 

Some one says, that " All Hesiod's gods are nothing else 
than animated parts of nature, fictitiously personated after 
the manner of the fanciful Greeks." 

Proclus says " that all things were eternal, in the sense 
that they were irradiated or proceeded from God. That 
the other gods or parts of the world were an ineffable pro- 
cession from a superior first cause." They, of course, are 
worthy of adoration, and, being nearer to us, are more 
likely to be worshipped, as the saints and Virgin Mary 
are in the Romish church. 

Such was the polytheism of philosophers and poets until 
the time of Christ. Even after the coming of our Lord, 
there were some with whom the fathers had to contend on 
the same points. Thus Celsus, the great antagonist of the 
fathers in the time of Adrian, says, " These silly shepherds 
and herdsmen, following Moses their leader, and being 
seduced by his rustic frauds, came to entertain this belief, 
that there is but one God." At a later period, Porphyry, 
and Jnlian the Apostate, both of them bitter enemies to 
Christianity, becoming ashamed of many things in the 
poets and mythologists, asserted most earnestly the belief 
of one self-existent God, maker of all things. But Julian 
acknowledged that they also held " that there are inferior 
gods, to whom he entrusted the government of different 
countries and cities, as prefects or presidents appointed by 
a king. Through these inferior gods man approached the 
Supreme." 



ON PLUTARCH, ETC. 



377 



Some of th? heathen upbraided the Christians with 
worshipping one who was himself a man, and who died 
the ignominious death of the cross; but to this they had 
the ready answer in the acknowledged fact of the birth 
and origin and infamous character of so many of their 
gods. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



EFFECT OF THE PHILOSOPHY AND IDOLATRY OF THE HEATHEN 
ON THE MOKALS OF THE ANCIENTS. 

Although, in the preceding chapter, we have shown 
some of the deficiencies of ancient philosophy, and the 
necessary influence of the same upon the morals of man- 
kind, we think it best to devote a chapter to the more spe- 
cial and fuller consideration of a subject of such impor- 
tance. St. Paul, in the first chapter of the epistle to the 
Romans, has given us a most loathsome picture of the de- 
pravity of the heathen. They were vain in their imagina- 
tions. Their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing 
themselves to be wise, they became fools. They had 
changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image 
made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed 
beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God gave them 
up to uncleanness and to vile affections. And as they did 
not like to retain God in their knowledge, but changed the 
truth of God into a lie, God gave them up to a reprobate 
mind, and to do those things which are not convenient. 
He tells us that they were filled with all unrighteousness, 
fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, envy, 
murder, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters 
of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, 
disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant- 
breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerci- 
ful. Oilier scriptures, both of the Old and New Testa- 



MORALS OF THE ANCIENTS. 



379 



ments, abound in the same descriptions, not only of the 
heathen, but of the chosen people, when they adopted 
principles worthy of the heathen, as they too ofren did. 

The apostle, however, has evidently a strong allusion to 
the philosophers falsely so called, and the effects of their 
doctrines on mankind. It is a principle clearly laid down 
by God and by the wisest of men, that we must judge of 
teachers and their doctrines by their fruits. We may thus, 
beforehand, know what fruits are to be expected from cer- 
tain doctrines. One has truly said, "The character of a 
people ma}' be well known from the character of their 
gods." I have collected together, from various sources, 
some testimonies bearing on this subject. And first, as 
ignorance of God and truth is a fruitful fountain of vice, I 
will speak of this. 

St. Paul acknowledged that here, even with the light of 
revelation, "we see through a glass darkly," and only 
" know in part." What, then, the darkness of a Socrates, 
who said that "the only thing he knew was that he knew 
nothing!" what that of Aristotle, who said that "As 
the eyes of bats are to the brightness of daylight, so also 
is the understanding of our souls even toward those tilings 
which, by nature, are most manifest to all I" Cicero said 
"that the light of nature no where appeared." All had 
been darkened by the speculations of men. "The world 
by wisdom l-ays St. I'aul) knew not (bid." " Professing 
themselves to be wise, they became fools." Truly does 
Mr. Locke say, thai "Philosophy, in the time of Christ, 
seems to have spent its strength and have done its utmost." 
Even fourhundred years before, Plato said, "The supremo 
(iod was haul t<> be found, and when found, not easy and 
safe to be declared." "To declare him to the vulgar b>aid 
Cicero) is unlawful." Even as to the Creator of the world, 
Ovid, who lived nearer to the Christian era, and seemed 
to have more light than most of the poets and philosophers, 



380 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



and who, in one place, speaks of God as " Mundi fabrica- 
tor et opifex," yet believed in numerous gods, and, in one 
place, seems uncertain which of them framed the world 
from chaos : "Quisquis fait ille deorum" is his language. 
The most ignorant deist of our day would despise the no- 
tions of most of the philosophers as to God and the gods, 
and a mere child might instruct them. 

Juvenal might well say of mankind in his day, and that 
the day of Rome's highest glory, "Et genus humanum 
damnat caligo futura"— " The human race is cursed by the 
darkness which hangs over the future." 

We have already seen how, not only at Athens but 
in many other countries and cities, there were temples 
to the unknown God, where the people ignorantly wor- 
shipped. 

Let us now see the opinions of the philosophers as to 
that great practical doctrine, the Providence of God. 
It is one of the perfections of our God that he can and 
does attend to the smallest thing equally with the great- 
est, and that he can and does attend to all, small and 
great, at one time, just as easily and perfectly as though 
all his care were bestowed on one in particular. We have it 
from the highest authority, that each hair of our heads is 
numbered, each step marked and directed, and that not 
even a sparrow falls to the ground without the knowledge 
of our God. How different the case of the heathen, with 
all the multiplicity of their gods. Not only did Epicurus 
and his followers hold that there were numerous gods, and 
one superior to the rest, yet they took no concern in hu- 
man affairs ; but Plato says that in his time there were 
many who professed to believe in the gods, but yet did 
not believe that they minded human affairs. 

Cicero also speaks of the doctrine of Providence as a 
point much disputed among the philosophers. He him- 
self believed that the gods took care of great cities, and 



MORALS OF THE ANCIENTS. 



381 



great men and things, but neglected the smaller ones : 
" Magna Dei curant, parva negligunt." Great men, he 
thought, were inspired: "Nemovii magnus, nisi aliquo 
afflatu divino." 

Euripides affirms the sentiment, and Plutarch seems to 
endorse it, that " God only concerns himself with the 
greatest tilings, and leaves the smaller to fortune." Ju- 
venal, however, comes nearer to the truth : " Nullum 
numen ahest, si sit prudentia ; " "Sed te nos facimus for- 
tuna deum ccelo que looamus;" though it may be he 
meant to substitute man's wisdom for all the gods. 

The poet Ennina positively denies the doctrine of Provi- 
dence, because of the unequal distribution of good things 
between the virtuous and the wicked. lie says of the 
gods, "Nam, si curent, bene bonis sint, male malis." 
Pliny, the great philosopher of nature, represents it as 
"ridiculous to suppose that the deity would be polluted 
with Bach ;i sad and troublesome ministry as that of at- 
tending to the petty affairs of men." Ccecilius, a cele- 
brated Roman lawyer, makes this an objection to the 
Christian religion. He speaks of the God of Christians 
"as every where present, troublesome, impertinently 
busy, and curious," saying that " he cannot attend to 
every particular while employed about the whole, nor 
take care of the whole while busied about particulars." 
With such views of God and his providence, it is not won- 
derful that their views of a future state should be very 
faint and doubtful. 

THE IMMORTALITY" OF THE SOUL, AND A FUTURE STATE. 

Let us inquire into their opinion-* on these points, on 
which so much of their religion and morality must de- 
pend. Socrates, who said that the knowledge of there 
being no punishments hereafter would he "good news to 



382 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



the wicked," declared that " in his day there were few 
who believed in the immortality of the soul" — though 
he tried to produce such a belief. 

Plato wrote very forcibly on the immortality of the 
soul ; but both he and Socrates put it on a wrong founda- 
tion, viz : on the ground of a previous eternal existence, 
as if God could not create it and perpetuate its existence 
without a previous being. But after Socrates and Plato 
passed away, many of the philosophers denied the future 
existence of the soul, and the multitude were ready 
enough to adopt it. Some of the enemies of Christianity 
denied that the pagans did disbelieve it. Celsus, the 
greatest among them, wishing to put the pagan systems 
on a level with the gospel in this respect, thus argued ; 
but Origen is very strong in opposition to his assertion. 
But even when the doctrine of a future state was ad- 
mitted, how many of them stripped it of all terror to the 
wicked, and represented God as incapable of anger, even 
toward sin, and that there was no suffering, although there 
might be some shame and ignorance. Plutarch says that 
the most of mankind were ready to admit what he calls " the 
fabulous hope of immortality, but had no fear of the pun- 
ishments of Hades," which he calls " the tales of mothers 
and nurses." At other times, however, he speaks differ- 
ently, and perhaps is misunderstood here. 

Cicero, also, in his Tusculan disputations, says of the ac- 
counts of future punishments which had prevailed, that 
"scarce any person at Rome believed them." "What 
old woman," he asks, " can be so senseless as to be afraid 
of the m3nstrous things in the infernal regions, which 
were anciently believed ? " 

Juvenal also says, " Nec pueri credunt nisi qui sere 
lavantur." Could we only find that they had any fear of 
any kind of future punishment, we could readily excuse 
their unbelief of much that was taught in the fables, but 



MORALS OF THE AXCIEXTS. 



383 



fear that there was little apprehension of future punish- 
ment, of any kind or degree. 

Equally doubtful and gloomy were their views as to 
the condition and rewards of the good. Plato complains 
of Homer for giving such dismal accounts of the dead, 
6aying that " they weakened men's courage, and made 
them afraid to die." When Achilles meets Ulysses in 
Hade-, (the heaven of the pagans.) he tells him that he 
had rather be a rustic on earth, serving a poor man for 
hire, than to have a large empire over all the dead, — thus 
more than reversing the choice of Milton's hero, " Better 
to reign in hell, than serve in heaven." Homer, how- 
ever, notwithstanding this, speaks of Hades as " a delec- 
table place." 

As to the later poets, though they say some things fa- 
vorable to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, 
they have other things and more against it. Thus Ca- 
tullus, 

" Nobis cum semel occidit brcvis lux 
Nox est pcrpctua una dormienda." 

So also Horace, 

" Vital summa brcvis spem nos vetat inchoarc longam 
Jam noi le premit, (kbulffi que manes." 

Persius also tells us that the language of his day was, 

" Indulge genio : carpamus dulcin, nostrum est 
Quod vivLs: cinis ct manes ct Tabula fics." 

Seneca also, in hie tragedian, says, 

" Post mortem niliil set, ipsa que mors nihil, 
y lucris quo jaccas, post obitum, loco ; 
Quo Don nati jaccnt." 

Julius Caesar, ns we have seen elsewhere in his speech 
for Catiline, pleadfl for his life by saying Chat death was 



884 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



no punishment to him ; that death puts an end to all those 
evils men are subject to; that beyond it there is no place 
left for anguish or joy ; that neither the soul nor body had 
any more sense after death. But let us once more hear 
what Cicero himself says — 'that Cicero who wrote the 
masterly and unanswerable argument in favor of the im- 
mortality of the soul, and yet was not quite satisfied him- 
self. " A question," he says, " has been raised, whether 
the soul dies with the body, or whether, if surviving, it 
should have a perpetual existence or only a temporary 
one." "As to the question," he says, "which of these 
opinions be true, some god must determine." Which is 
most probable, is a great question. Cicero was a follower 
of Plato, who also wrote on the immortality of the soul, 
and who, it must be ever borne in mind, was the great 
advocate of the doctrine of "probabilities," viz., that the 
most fixed opinions were at best but probabilities. And 
this he got from his old master Socrates, the great de- 
fender of the immortality of the soul against the infidels 
of his day. He was the practical philosopher of Greece 
and the world. And how did he meet death, for defend- 
ing truth and condemning error too boldly! The doctrine 
of probability was his best hope. " I am in good hoj?e" 
he said, "that there is something remaining for those that 
are dead, and that, as hath been said of old, it is much 
better for good than for bad men." His disciple, Plato, 
rested it on the same foundation, viz., " that we ought al- 
ways to believe the ancient and sacred words," — that is, 
" old tradition." Let us hear the last words of Socrates 
to his friends : " It is now time to depart. I am going to 
die. You shall continue here ; but which of us shall be 
in better state is unknown to all but God." How different 
the language of St. Paul : " The time of my departure is 
at hand. I have fought a good fight ; I have finished 
my course ; I have kept the faith i henceforth there is 



MORALS OF THE ANCIENTS. 



3S5 



laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, 
the righteous judge, shall give me on that day." But 
even this leap in the dark, this plunge into a world un- 
known, which Socrates made, how much hetter than the 
creed of another philosopher who, in the close of life, and 
in view of death, left this testimony to his followers: 
"Fcede hunc mundum intravi ; auxins vixi, incertus mo- 
rior ; O causa causarum miserere mei ! " — " Unclean I en- 
tered this world ; anxious have I lived, uncertain I die ; 
Cause of causes, pity me ! " I heard an old infidel of 
ninety years of age utter these words as his creed, "O 
my soul, come not thou into his secret." 

And how many, under the influence of such a painful 
uncertainty, have rushed uncalled into eternity, to realize 
their future condition! How many of the nhilosophers 
have justified the experiment! 

Epictetus, one of the best of heathen moralists, says, as 
to the troubles of life, "Jupiter hath made these things 
to be no evils. He has opened a door whenever they do 
not suit you. Go out. and do not complain. If these 
evils be not great, stay where thou art. But the door is 
Open. Do not be more fearful than children. When the 
play does not please them, they say, we will play no lon- 
ger. So do you 6ay, in that case, I will play no longer. 
If my house be smoking, I will go out of it." 

Thus aho did David Iluine reason: "Whenever," he 
said, " pain or sorrow so far overcomes my patience as 
to make me tire of life-, I may conclude that I am re- 
called from my state in the plainest and most express 
terms. When I fall upon my own sword, I receive my 
death equally from the hands of the Deity as if it had 
proceeded from ;i lion, u precipice, or a fever. Where is 
the crime of turning a few ounces of blood out of the 
natural channel i " 
23 



386 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 

This great incentive to virtue and preventive of vice, — 
the hope of happiness and fear of suffering in the body as 
well as soul, — was almost entirely wanting to the pagan 
system. St. Paul was reckoned a madman for teaching 
so incredible a thing. His great argument in defence of 
it was, " why should it be thought a thing impossible 
with you that God should raise the dead ? " Pythagoras 
and Plato could not have received it, because, according 
to their system, the soul preexisted, and the body was the 
mere temporary prison. The soul was to find some other 
abode at death, or be reabsorbed into God. The infidel 
Celsus treated it with contempt, calling it " the hope of 
worms." Among the Jews, the scribes and Pharisees 
held it ; but the Sadducees, — the infidels of Judea, — re- 
jected it. See our chapter on the immortality of the soul 
and resurrection of the body. 

THE EVIL CHARACTER OF THE GODS. 

We have reserved for the last that which contributed so 
much to demoralize the heathen, viz., the character of 
their deities. 

Jupiter, though sometimes regarded as the great self- 
existent god or ]STumen of the universe, was much oftener 
worshipped as an ancient king who was guilty of numer- 
ous and great crimes. Thus does Homer represent him. 
His example was pleaded as a sanction for the most in- 
famous vices. So scandalous were his repeated acts, that 
the primitive Christians could never be induced, though 
under penalty of death, to pronounce his name as that of 
the great God, without prefixing the name of Creator or 
Maker to distinguish him as the God of the Christian from 
the god of the pagan. 



MORALS OF THE A>~CIE>~TS. 



3S7 



The animals also, whose images were used in Egypt, 
and doubtless elsewhere, were symbolical of the qualities 
of the gods which they represented. Of course, whatever 
evil or peculiar qualities distinguished the animal, were 
ascribed to the g"ds themselves. 

The parts or objects of nature, when worshipped, as they 
often were, were confounded with the hero-gods. Thus 
Bacchus was wine, Vulcan was fire, Ceres was corn. 
Temples were erected, not only to good qualities but also 
to vicious ones, — as to Volupis, the goddess of pleasure ; 
to Libertina, the goddess of lust. In Athens there was 
one to impudence and contumely. Plutarch informs us 
that the people not only worshipped those who were fa- 
vorable to mankind, but those most unfavorable, as the 
Dine, the Furies, and Mars, seeking to appease them by 
the most cruel rites and sacrifices, thus fulfilling the ac- 
count which Milton gives us in one brief half sentence, — 
" Lust hard hij hutr." Plutarch also speaks of some in 
Egypt who used, on certain days, to inflict the most cruel 
torture on themselves in order to appease some malignant 
demons, and avert their wrath. These were they, and 
there were thousands of others, as has been already said, 

u Who BOOght to merit heaven 
Ky making earth a hell." 

As to tli^ obscenity of the ancient worship and the de- 
scription of it, tin y were such that Plato did well to ban- 
ish the licentious poets from his commonwealth, although 
he held thai in the most ancient poets was most <>|* primi- 
tive truth, lie condemned Ilesiod and others for the 
scandalous things said by them of Jupiter. It is well 
known, also, that in some of the public games and plays 
the Sagitions actions of the gods were publicly represented 
as a pious olfeiing to them. At Jioine, after the theatres 
ha«l been closed as corrupters of the morals of the people,, 



388 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



they were opened again in the time of a plague to pro- 
pitiate the malignant deities who sent it. 

St. Austin says, that " There are some things in the sa- 
cred books of the pagans which treat of religion and the 
holy rites, which grave poets would have thought unfit to be 
the subjects of their verses." Varro, the Roman historian, 
says, "They call those gods which, if they had life and 
breath, and a man should meet them unexpectedly, would 
pass for monsters." 

" The same gods," says St. Austin, " are laughed at in 
the theatres, and adored in the temples." Ovid, in his 
sad letters from Pontus, complains that he was banished 
from Rome for some things in his "Art of Love," when 
worse things of the same kind were seen in the pictures 
and engravings of their temples.* 

As to the worship of Bacchus, — a most profligate deity, 
representing wine and strong drink, — revellings and drunk- 
enness were always a part of it. The victors in the con- 
tests of drinking, even to Alexander the Great, who fell a 
victim to one of them, were rewarded with a crown of 
leaves and a vessel of wine. Even Plato, according to 
Diogenes Laertius, said that " to drink wine to excess was 
not allowable, except on the festivals of the god who was 
the giver of wine." 

As to the rites in which lewdness and debauchery were 
practised in honor of Venus and other deities, we cannot 
defile our pages with the mention of them. Not even their 
sacred mysteries were free from them in 'some countries ; 
so corrupt were they as at last to require their prohibition 
by public authority. St. Peter speaks of "lasciviousness, 

* It were to be wished that nothing of this kind could be even now charged 
upon picture-galleries in public and private houses, and in the theatres. In the 
latter, vicious actions are not condemned as they should be, and false senti- 
ments are uttered, while the ladies are content to hide their faces with a fan or 
handkerchief, and pretend not to hear them. 



MORALS OF THE ANCIENTS. 



3S9 



lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquet ings, in connec- 
tion with abominable idolatries." The philosophers, poli- 
ticians, and rulers still encouraged the people to worship 
their gods, and the priests did not expose their error or 
seek to correct their morals. 

The celebrated John Locke, in his treatise on the 
" Iteasonableness of Christianity," says, "The people, un- 
der pain of displeasing the gods, were to frequent the 
temples. Every one went to the sacrifices and services ; 
but the priests made it not their business to teach them 
virtue." In vain do we look into their books for treatises 
on morals such as we find in the Old and Xew Testaments. 

Even Cicero, the great moralist of Rome, says, " The 
gifts of fortune are to be asked of God or the gods, but 
wisdom comes from ourselves." "Jupiter," he says, "can- 
not make us just, temperate, and wise, but gives us riches 
and health," etc. 

"Well, then, does our Saviour say, "After all these things 
do the Gentiles seek," and exhort us to "seek first the 
kingdom of heaven and its righteousness." Happy those 
to whom it is said, "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask 
of (iod, who ^ive;h to all men liberally, and upbraideth 
not." 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



ON HOMER THE ILIAD, ODYSSEY, AND OTHEK POEMS. 

Homek is generally supposed to have lived somewhat 
later than Hesiod, — according to the great chronologist, 
Mr. Hales, about twenty-seven years later, but others 
say about a century before him. The siege of Troy is 
placed about twelve hundred years before Christ by Mr. 
Hales, though only about nine hundred by Sir Isaac New- 
ton. Homer is generally suppoced to have written his 
Iliad about three hundred years after the siege of Troy. 
As the Bible is the oldest of all books, so Homer's Iliad 
is supposed to be the oldest of all heathen writings which 
have come down to us, except in fragments. Sir Walter 
Raleigh and others considered it indisputable that Homer 
must have read all the books of Moses, and borrowed 
many passages from them. The contiguity of Judea to 
Troy, and the admitted fact that Homer lived and wrote 
some time after the Israelites had settled in the promised 
land, bringing the books of Moses with them, renders this 
possible, if not probable. That such books as Homer's 
Iliad and Odyssey should be the earliest productions of 
pagan genius is a thing not for a moment to be supposed. 
They are too highly finished, too full of history, philoso- 
phy, and astronomy, and too refined to belong to the first 
stage of civilized life. The Greeks may not, generally, 
have made great advances in the arts and sciences, yet we 
must remember how noble and perfect their language was 



ON" HOMER. 



391 



in the time of Homer. We must recollect the wisdom of 
the Egyptians long before the time of Homer, much of 
which was inscribed on the shield of Achilles, gotten from 
thence most probably by Homer himself, who was called 
the " strolling bard'' because of his travels through so 
many countries in search of knowledge, and from whence 
he obtained materials for his poems. 

His translator, Pope, speaks of those " secrets of nature 
and of physical philosophy" which he everywhere displays ; 
" those innumerable knowledges," and " how he clothes 
all the properties of the elements, and the qualifications 
of mind, and the virtues and vices in forms and persons." 
Mr. Pope says, " Though he has some very low thoughts, 
yet has he more noble and excellent ones than any other 
writer ; " in proof of which he adduces the fact that " the 
writings of Homer have so remarkable a parity with 
scripture." Speaking of the noble simplicity of the sa- 
cred writers, and their use of words common at that age 
of the world, he says that, as Homer is the author nearest 
to these, his style must bear a greater resemblance to the 
sacred books than any others. Several writers have writ- 
ten treatises instituting comparison- between Homer and 
tin- Bible, and adducing numerous passages resembling 
each other, and calling him " the Bible of the pagan 
world." Although we cannot agree with Lord Boling- 
broke, Pope's infidel patron and friend, and to whom he 
dedicated his translation, that to those who have read his 
great poem 

" All other books appear so mean, so poor, 
Verse will seem prose" — 

yet we must admit that some of Bolingbroke's school 
might read it, and mend their piety by the same. 

In discoursing on Homer we shall use Pope's translation, 
with this remark, taken from ( Jray's '* Connections," a very 
valuable work on the ancient authors: "They, however. 



392 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



who read Homer in the beautiful translation by Pope, 
will suppose the poet to speak with more sacred dignity 
of expression than the original work strictly warrants us 
to admit. The translator's mind being familiar with the 
diction of the scriptures, he sometimes unconsciously ap- 
plies to the heathen deities expressions which bear the 
stamp of inspiration, because consecrated in the hallowed 
language of the Bible. Such a caution is the more neces- 
sary, as Mr. Pope, in his intimacy with and admiration of 
Lord Bolingbroke, whom he calls his 

" Guide, philosopher, and friend," 

was too much inclined to latitudinarian views. Thus, in 
his " Universal Prayer," he invokes the Deity as 

" Father of all, in every age, 
In every clime adored 
By saint by savage, and by sage, 
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord !" 

in reading which we are reminded of the words of a more 
modern writer, who says, " I am an Omnist, and believe 
in all religions." 

Concerning the birthplace and other things which have 
been discussed in relation to Homer, we have little to say. 
Many lives of him were written by the ancients, only one 
of which, that ascribed to Herodotus, remains ; and that 
so full of fabulous things that it is doubted whether it be 
the work of Herodotus, fond as he was of the marvellous. 
To him, who had done so much toward the honoring of 
the gods, temples were built and sacrifices offered after his 
death. Wishing to do ample justice to him and the whole 
pagan system, we now proceed to something like an analy- 
sis of his great poem, by selecting some choice passages 
which will exhibit the leading traits of it. 

First, I shall adduce a few which show the general 



OX HOMER. 



393 



spirit of piety pervading the whole work. It should, in- 
deed, rather be called superstition, after the example of 
St. Paid, who said to the Athenians, as to their worship 
of the Unknown God, "I perceive that in all things ye 
are too superstitious ; " still, as any religion is better than 
atheism, we still pay some respect to it, though it be only, 
for the most part, a perversion of the truth. The princi- 
ple which pervades the poem is this: "Those who revere 
the gods, the gods will bless." 

'■ Blest is the man who pays the gods ahove 
The constant tribute of respect and love." 

The continual prayers and sacrifices offered up to the gods 
before engaging in battle, or entering on any great enter- 
prise, were also proofs of the dependence on some power 
above themselves. Although his heroes are generally dis- 
gustingly boastful, like Goliath of Gath, yet does the 
poet sometimes remind us of the youthful and pious 
David : 

"If thou hast strength, 'twas Heaven that strength bestowed, 
For know, vain man, that valor is from God : 
'Tia man's to light, but ileavcn to give success. " t 

Elig two great heroes, Hector and Achilles, are both 
made to bear testimony to religion, each in his own way. 
Hector, the more amiable and pious, thus denounces the 
atheist : 

"The weakest atheist wretch all heaven defies, 
But shrinks and shudders when the thunder flies." 

Even the monster Achilles is not wanting in this respect. 

reverence f< » r tin* ministers of (tod, and of (tod through 
them, is most profound. Although proudly defying the 
great Agamemnon, he humhly appeals to the priest and 
prophet : 



394 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



" Chalcas the Wise, the Grecian priest and guide, 
That sacred seer, whose comprehensive view 
The past, the present, and the future knew, 
Perhaps, with added sacrifice and prayer, 
The priest may pardon, and the god may spare." 

In which passage we have also the recognition of an 
order of prophets which carries us back to the patriar- 
chal times, when Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were 
the priests and prophets, offering sacrifices and predicting 
the future histories of their descendants. 

Secondly, Homer's account of God and the gods. In 
Homer we find the same confusion and contradiction on 
this subject which we have shown to exist in so many of 
the mythologists and philosophers. Sometimes he ascribes 
the highest attributes to Jupiter, making him equal to 
the self-existent and eternal God, as set forth by Moses ; 
and then he throws all into confusion again. Thus he is 
sometimes spoken of as 

" Supreme of gods, unbounded and alone, 
"Who in the heaven of heavens hast fixed thy throne |" 

Again, — 

" Immortal Jove, high heaven's supremest Lord ! 
The united strength of all the gods above 
In vain resists the omnipotence of Jove." 

Again, — 

" The sire of all the gods and all the ethereal train." 

Again, — 

" The high tribunal of immortal Jove, 
Father of all the gods." 

Again, — 

"And know the Almighty is the God of gods." 
Again, — 

" first and greatest God — by gods adored !" 



OX HOMER. 



395 



Again,— 

" If I but stretch this hand, 
I heave the gods, the ocean, and the land." 

And yet in this same book we have the history of the 
earthly origin and birth of this great Jupiter. Xeptune 
is made to give this history of him : 

'• Three brother deities from Saturn came, 
And ancient Rhea, earth's immortal dame. 
Assigned by lot, our triple rule we know : 
Infernal Pluto sways the realms below. 
O'er the wide clouds, and o'er the starry plain 
Ethereal Jove extends his high domain. 
My court beneath the hoary waves I keep, 
And hush the roaring of the sacred deep. 
Olympus and the earth in common lie." 

Such was the division by lot between the three sons of 
Saturn; but Jupiter is charged by Xeptune with en- 
croaching on his dominion, and is thus rebuked by him : 

" What claim has here the tyrant of the sky ? 
Far in the distant clouds let him control. 
And awe the younger brethren of the pole. 
There to his children his command be given, — _ 
The trembling, sen ile second race of heaven." 

Here we have the whole history of the heathen gods. 
The three sous of Saturn, who were the great gods of 
heaven, hell, and the sea, the earth being common to 
them all, are the first and greatest. " The servile 6econd 
race of heaven" arc the hcro-^xls, the inferior deities, 
who came after these. Homer makes Juno, the sifter 
and wife of Jupiter, give us souk; account of their old 
parents, who bad by some means been gotten rid of, and 
sent down into a cavern of the sea. Old Saturn and Rhea, 
or old Ocean and Tethys, are thu> dc-crihed by Juno, who 
goes to " those remote abodes :" 



396 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



"Where the great parents, sacred source of gods, 
Ocean and Tethys, their old empire keep. 
In their kind arms my tender years were past, 
What time old Saturn, from Olympus cast, 
Of upper heaven to Jove resigned the reign, 
Whelmed under the huge mass of earth and main." 

Jupiter, having thus dethroned his father, became the 
supreme ruler of the world, and his descendants are the 
inferior deities or demi-gods with which the pagan my- 
thology is filled. Still there are evidences of the recog- 
nition, not only of Saturn or old Ocean, and Rhea or 
Tethys, but of one who was before all these ; and Homer 
is continually endeavoring to invest Jupiter with the at- 
tributes of the ancient one, while at the same time con- 
tinuing to him his earthly character. This is the true 
secret of all the confusion that exists on this subject. 

HOMER'S ACCOUNT OF JUPITER AS IDENTIFIED WITH FATE. 

Thus — 

" Angry Jove and all compelling Fate." 

Again,- — ■ 

" The hand of Fate works out our will." 
Again, — 

" Such was our word, and Fate our word obeys." 

Again, — 

" Thus have I spoken, and what I speak is Fate : 
Celestial states, immortal gods, give ear ! 
Hear our decree, and reverence what ye hear ! 
The fixed decree which not all heaven can move, 
Thou, Fate, fulfil it, and ye powers, approve !" 

Sometimes he speaks of a fatal Chance, as well as " all- 
compelling Fate." 

THE GOODNESS AND PERFECTION OF JUPITER. 

" ' 'Tis just,' said Priam to the sire above, 
' To raise our hands ; for who so good as Jove ? ' " 



ON 1TOMER. 



397 



Again,— 

" Father of gods, oh ! ever just and true. ' 

Again — 

" Seek not thou to find 
The sacred councils of the eternal mind ; 
"Whatever is — that ought to be." 



TIIK DEFECTS OF JUPITER AND THE OTHER GODS. 

So glaring are their vices, that hoth gods and men up- 
braid them. Thus Achilles reviles Apollo : 

" Powerful of godhead, and of fraud divine ! 
Mean fame, alas ! for one of heavenly train, 
To cheat a mortal w ho repines in vain." 

Another upbraids Jove himself thus : 

M In powers immortal who can now believe ;" 
Cans"t thou too flatter, and can Jove deceive ?" 

Another tauntingly says to him, in allusion to his adul- 
teries : 

" Loth as thou art to punish lust." 

On one occasion Jupiter is represented as saying: 

" Let men their days in senseless strife employ, 
Wc in eternal peace and constant joy." 

And yet they were constantly engaged in intrigues on 
the one side or the other, and sometimes came down from 
Olympus to take part in the battles on the lields of Troy. 



HOMER ON Till: I>0< TRINE OF THE FALL OF MAN, ETC. 

He speaks of man as "calamitous by birth." Priam is 
made thus to account for evil : 

u Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood. 
The source of evil one, and one of good. 
From these the cap "f mini he lilN ; 
Blessings to these, to those dispensing ills, — 



398 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



To most he mingles both. 

The happiest tastes not happiness sincere, 

But finds the cordial draft is dashed with care." 

Elsewhere it is said : 

" Whate'er we feel, 'tis Jove inflicts the blow ; 
And when Jove gave us life, he gave us woe." 

HOMEK ON A FUTURE STATE DARK AND CONTRADICTORY. 

Thus one is made to say to Andromache : 

" Thy Hector, wrapped in everlasting sleep, 
Shall neither hear thee sigh nor see thee weep." 

And Andromache, in her last lament, says : 

" Thou to the dismal realms forever gone, 
And I — abandoned, desolate, alone." 

Another is made to say of Hades, or Elysium : 

" If in that gloom, which light must never know, 
The deeds of mortals touch the ghosts below. 

So comfortless was the thought of death, that old Priam, 
the venerable and pious king of Troy, is nevertheless 
obliged to beseech the gods to send him 

"A willing ghost to Pluto's dreary realm." 

It was of this Hades, or Elysium, that Achilles said : 

" Who dares think one thing and another tell ! 
My soul detests him as the gates of hell." 

But still this place was considered better than to wander 
about, without any abode, after death, which was thought 
to be the case with those who were buried without funeral 
rites. 

Therefore Patroclus, in his apparition to Achilles, begs 
that he will discharge that duty to him : 



OX HOMER. 



399 



" Let my pale corse the rites of funeral know, 
And give me entrance to the shades below. 
Till then the spirit knows no resting-place ; 
But here and there the unbodied spectres chase 
The vagrant dead around the dark abode, 
Forbid to cross the irremeable flood." 

But whether in Hades, or wandering around it, Homer 
represents the dead as clothed with some light, ethereal 
bodies. 

When the apparition of Patroclna vanishes, Achilles 
says : 

'"Tis true, 'tis certain, man though dead retains 
Part of himself; the immortal mind remains. 
The form subsists without the body's aid, 
Aerial semblance and an empty shade. 
This night my friend, in battle lost, 
Stood at my side, a pensive, plaintive ghost : 
E'en now familiar as in life he came — 
Alas ! how different, and yet how like the same !" 

HOMER ON ANNUAL SACRIFICES. 

These are everywhere mentioned as acceptable, even 
when human victims were offered. Let one example suf- 
fice. Achilles, as a pious offering to the gods, or to the 
soul of Patroclna, offered up on his huge funeral pile 
not only hundreds of animals, sheep, and oxen, hut also 
twelve Trajan captives : 

" Then, la>t of all, and terrible to tell, 
Twelve Trojan captives fell." 

BOXKH <>.\ tiii: 1:1 hcacy OF PRAYER. 

" The gods, the great and only wine, 
Arc moved by nflering*, vows, ami sacrifice. 
( Ml' ii'liti.' man their bi^li mmpas-inn win-, 
Ami daily prnycrs atone fur daily in-." 



400 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



One of the most interesting personifications and deifi- 
cations in the pagan system, is that of prayers ; they are 
represented as 

" Jove's daughters of celestial race, 
With humble mien and with dejected eyes, 
Mediating at the throne of grace." 

homer's doctrine of divine guidance and inspiration. 

.No sentiments or words are more frequently in the 
months of Homer's heroes than this, — - 

"Some god within commands, and I obey." 

homek on the ignorance of mortals. 
The Muses are called 

" All-knowing goddesses, immortal Nine, 
Seated around the throne divine." 

'• We wretched mortals, lost in doubts below, 
But guess by rumor, and but boast we know. 
Heaven only knows, for_He disposes all." 

HOMER ON THE LONG LIVES OF THE ANCIENTS. 

The long lives and superior strength of the ancients are 
thus set forth. After saying of old Nestor. 

" Two ages o'er his native realm he reigned, 
And now the example of the third remain'd," 

Nestor is made to say, 

" A godlike race of heroes once I knew, 
Such as no more these aged eyes shall view." 



OX HOMER. 



401 



HOMES ON REVENGE. 

Not only is his great hero the very personification of re- 
venge, or another name for it, hut even old Ilecuha, the 
pious and venerable mother of Hector, in the midst of her 
grief for his death, is made to exclaim, as to Achilles, 

" Oli ! in his dearest blood might I allay 
My rage, and these barbarities repay." 

And the general principle or spirit of his poem is, 
" My friend must hate the man who injures me." 

IIOMKR ON THE PATRIOTISM OF AGAMEMNON. 

There is one noble passage for statesmen and rulers 
which must not lie omitted. While all others were in pro- 
found sleep, he is thus described : 

14 All but the kiii^r ; with various thoughts oppressed, 
His country's t ares lay rolling on his breast. 
Inly lie groans." 

IIOMKR ON Till: DEIFICATION OF ALL NATE RE. 

Not only were heroes turned into gods, virgins into 
nymphs and muses, virtues and vices into graces and 
furies, but everything in nature was deified. Thus the 
river Zanthus, near Troy, which was called "the immor- 
tal progeny of Jove," was turned into a god, and engages 
against Achillea, rolling its tumultuous waves over him, 
and threatening to overwhelm him. This was only a part 
of the theology of his day; for rivers were wor-hipped j u 
various parte of the world. 
215 



403 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



THE ODYSSEY, OR WANDERINGS OF ULYSSES FROM TROY 
TO ITHACA. 

In this poem there are some few things, not noticed in 
the Iliad, which may contribute to the object of this book. 
Thus the word " daimon," sometimes improperly trans- 
lated, in the ISTew Testament, devils, when it should be 
gods, — that is, hero-gods, or guardian spirits, (according to 
the use of it in the times of the New Testament,) — is used 
by Homer to signify Dens, or God, and not a guardian 
spirit, or good genius, such as Socrates believed in. 

It was not until after the time of Homer that it was used 
to signify a guardian spirit. The commentator on the 
Odyssey quotes the following from Kodolph : " Antiquis- 
simis temporibus daimon nihil erat quam deus." An- 
other proof this that the further we go back into antiquity, 
the more did language recognize the Deity. 

Another passage may well excite a smile in those whom 
the scriptures have taught to consider the highest praise 
to be that given to Nathanael by our Lord, "Behold an 
Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile." Minerva, speak- 
ing to Telemachus in praise of his father Ulysses, says, 
"Divine Ulysses, your father, surpassed much in all kinds 
of deceit." 

The words God and Jove are used in the Odyssey, as 
elsewhere, to represent some supreme Numen ; thus the old 
swineherd, Eumeus, in entertaining his ancient but now 
unknown master, Ulysses, says, "For all strangers and 
beggars are from Jove ; " but again he says to his guest, 
" Eat, O divine one of my guests ! and delight thyself with 
these things, such as are present ; for God bestows one 
thing and refuses another, whatever he wills in his own 
mind, for he can do all things." 



OX HOMER. 



403 



iiojiee's hymxs. 

Hymns and singing formed a part of the worship of the 
gods. They, of course, partook of the character and cele- 
brated the deeds of the gods. Homer has hymns to all the 
great gods ; very long ones to some, to Jupiter a very 
short one. He seems to he regarded hy the mythologists 
and some of the philosophers of the East as too high or 
too far oft" to be reached or troubled, except through the 
inferior and mediating gods. Homer lavishes titles upon 
him, and nothing else, calling him " the many-named," 
"the cloud-compelling," "the loud-sounding," "the king 
of kings," etc. 

In the hymn to the "far-darting Apollo," son of Jupiter 
and Latona, feared by all the gods as he moves through 
the house of Jove, he recounts the story of his birth in the 
Isle of Delos, and of all the mighty deeds and amours 
ascribed to him. In his hymn to Venus, daughter of Jupi- 
ter and Juno, we may expect to find something accordant 
with that character which the mere mention of her name 

Hlgge-ts. Into her .111). iter liilll-clf inspires the love (if 

mortals as well as of gods. She is formed to excite desire 
in both. She becomes the mother of godlike -Eneas, 
Anchiscs being his lather. 

To many-clustered IJacchiis, also, crowned with joy and 
laurel, he has song-, though they do not partake of the 
character into which bacchanalian songs afterward de- 
generated, l'ot\ by universal consent of the ancienta, he was 
no other than Noah or l>ioiiusus, the god of the ark ; and 
it is probable that his planting a vineyard and intoxication 
by wine, as mentioned by Moses, may have given rise to 
this feature in his worship in after times. 

One of the (ireek poets, Theognis, who lived about 5oQ 
years before Christ, in his address to Simonides, gives an 



404 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



account of a convivial feast hi his day, upbraiding some 
who were present with intemperance, and thus concludes : 

" I shall retire ; the rule, I think, is right, 
Not absolutely drunk, nor sober quite." 

It is to be feared that some in our own day, in words as 
well as deeds, advocate the above sentiment. 

I once heard of a lady who, in defending a favorite 
minister from the charge of intemperance, said, that 
though she had never seen him drunk, yet she had often 
seen him '''■gentlemanly merry' 1 '' after dinner. This was 
not deemed unbecoming in the man of God. I fear it is 
too true, not only of many Christian professors, but of some 
ministers of religion, that after dinner they are 

"Not absolutely drunk, nor sober quite." 

His hymn to Mars begins with a string of titles : "Most 
mighty Mars," " weigher-down of chariots," " gold cas- 
qued," "great-minded," "shield-bearing," "city preser- 
ver," " brass-equipped," " untired," " powerful in the 
spear," " bulwark of Olympus," " revolving thy fiery circle 
among the seven wandering stars." 

How different from the names of God, as given in our 
scriptures : " Our Father, who art in heaven," " Our Lord," 
" Jehovah," " God of love and peace." 

When we read of all these things in the sacred poetry 
of the heathen, it helps us to understand the apostle's ad- 
monition to "sing together in psalms and hymns and 
spiritual songs ; singing and making melody in our hearts 
to the Lord," and not to Bacchus, Venus, Apollo, and 
others whose worship was an abomination. 

In these hymns to the various gods we have the whole 
system of pagan idolatry, according to Homer and Hesiod. 
Thus we have one to the Earth as mother of all, mother 



OX HOMER. 



405 



of gods and men, wife of the heavens ; also to the sun and 
moon as deities. In this there is reference to the per- 
verted truth that Coelus, or God, made man and other 
tilings out of the earth, which is called his wife ; and then 
made the sun and moon. Saturn and Rhea, the son and 
daughter of Coelus and Terra — the first of human beings 
— were none other than Adam and Eve, formed, as to their 
bodies, out of the earth, and as to their souls, God breathed 
them into their bodies. 

We have also mention, in these hymns, of Pluto, the god 
of hell, under the name of Hades — "Hades, dark-haired 
Hades" — a name often used in scripture, and which we 
translate hell. 



CHAPTEE XXIX. 



HESIOD AND CALLIMACHtrS. 

I shall not enter into any further discussion of the com- 
parative ages of Homer and Hesiod. Herodotus, the 
father of history, says, " Homer and Hesiod lived, as I 
consider, not more than four hundred years before my 
time ;" and he lived between four and five hundred years 
before Christ. But, as was said in our last chapter, others 
place Hesiod twenty-seven years before Homer ; others 
again make him one hundred years after him. 

It matters little, as to the object of my book, how the 
question is settled. In main points they are agreed. 
Homer introduces the gods in a desultory manner, only 
to aid in the great poem which has immortalized him. He- 
siod, whether coming before or after Homer, gives us a 
regular history of the creation, and the gods and hero- 
gods, — -that is, the Cosmogony, Theogony, and Heroology, 
according to the prevailing traditions or his own fancy. 
We have already seen how Plato, Socrates, Zenophanes, 
and others denounced his account of the gods, as derog- 
atory to them and injurious to men.* 

HIS THEOGONY. 

Hesiod professes to write under the inspiration of the 
Muses, and 

* I quote from the translation by Elton. 



HESIOD AND CALLIMACHU3. 



407 



" They to Hesiod erst 
Have taught their stately song." 

But lie. takes it from their own lips: 

" They a voice 
Immortal uttering, first in song proclaim 
The race of venerable gods, who rose 
From the beginning, whom the spacious Heaven 
And Earth produced ; and all the deities 
From them successive sprung, dispensing good." 

The first of the venerable gods produced by heaven and 
earth are Saturn and Rhea, descended from Coelus and 
Terra. This is believed to be a tradition of Adam and 
Eve, made by God, or Ccelus, out of clay, or lime. Saturn 
is cast out of the throne by Jupiter, his eldest son, and 
banished to the deep caverns of ocean. This is supposed 
to be a mutilation of Adam's banishment from paradise. 
Jupiter now becomes the supreme power, and though 
there are other children burn of Saturn and Rhea, as Juno, 
Pluto, and Xeptunc, he reigns over all. Juno becomes 
his sister-wife, {uxor et soror,) as must needs have been the 
case in the infancy of mankind. The Muses are repre- 
sented as thus prai.-ing him : 

" Next also Jove, the sire of gods and men, 
They praise." 

•• How excellent is he." 

" Above all gods — in his might supreme." 

'• He reign in heaven." 

" Dispoaefl all tilings," etc., etc. 

The Muses then |»r..eei-d 

"To sing the laws that bind 
The universal ln-.iv. n-, the manners pure 
Of deathless gods." 



403 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



They are then called to 

" Declare how first the gods-and earth became." 
"From the beginning — say who first arose." 

And this is the answer : 

" First chaos was ; next ample-bosomed earth, 
The seat eternal and immovable 
Of deathless gods." 

Then — 

" The gloomy Tartarus." 

" Love then arose, 
Most beauteous of immortals." 

By means of Love, night or darkness sprang from 
chaos ; and day or light from darkness. Then, by the 
same principle, the heavenly bodies were born from the 
earth. Then was Saturn born, 

" Youngest in birth, 
The sternest of her sons ; and he abhorred 
The sire that gave him life." 

Thus was Adam made last of all creation, and he dis- 
obeyed his heavenly Father. 

Then follows an account of the giants 

" Who all their sire abhorred, 
From the beginning ; all his race he seized, 
As each was born, and hid in cave profound, 
Nor e'er released to day ; and in his work 
Malign exulted." 

Then come the wars of the giants against heaven, in 
which Coelus is overthrown and Saturn triumphant ; but 
he destroys his male children, lest one of them should 
supplant him. Jupiter is roused by his mother, and con- 
tends with Saturn his son, and casts him from his throne. 



HESIOD AND CALLIMACHUS. 



409 



This is Hesiod's battle of the Titans and the gods, or the 
followers of Saturn and of Jupiter, which ends in the de- 
struction of the Titans or Saturnians, and the establish- 
ment of Jupiter as the god and monarch of the earth. 



hesiod's poem on works and days. 

In the opening of this poem we are reminded of the 
sentence pronounced on man : " In the sweat of thy face 
shalt thou eat thy bread ;" and of the curse on the earth, 
" Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth. " 

" The food of man in deep concealment lies, 
The angry pods have veiled it from our eyes; 
Else had one day supplied sufficient cheer, 
And, though inactive, fed thee through the year.'' 

There are passages in Hesiod's " Works and Days," as 
well as in his Theogony, which bear testimony to the 
Mosaic account of woman's share in the evils brought upon 
the human race. 

At the instigation of Jupiter, Vulcan 

" Moulded from the yielding clay 
A hashful virgin's image ; 
And In ! from her descend the tender sex 
Of woman : a pernicious kind. 
A bane to men ; 

III helpmates of intolerable toils." 

^Die above is from the Theogony. 
In his '• Works ;md Days," he says, 

" The name Pandora to the maid was given ; 
For all the gods conferred a gifted grace 
To crown this mischief of the mortal race." 

Then coinr, (he account id" the introduction of evil into 
the world through woman ; who, though forbidden to do 



I 



410 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



it, through curiosity opens a casket containing all the ills 
of life. 

" The woman's hands an ample casket bear, 
She lifts the lid, she scatters ills in air ; 
Hope sole remained within, nor took her flight, 
Beneath the casket's verge concealed from sight. 
With ills the land- is rife, with ills the sea, 
Diseases haunt our frail humanity ; 
Now swift the days of manhood pass away, 
And misery's pressure makes the temples gray." 

The description of the different ages deserves insertion 
here. Though agreeing generally with Ovid and others, 
it differs in this respect, that he adds a fifth age — that of 
the hero-gods : 

" "When gods alike and mortals rose to birth, 
A golden race the immortal formed on earth. 
Like gods they lived, with calm, untroubled mind, 
Free from the toil and anguish of our kind. 
The virtuous many dwelt in common, blest, 
And all, unenvying, share what all in peace possest. 
When on this race the verdant earth had lain, 
By Jove's high will there rose a genii-train : 
Earth-wandering demons, they their charge began, 
The ministers of good, and guards to man. 

Then formed the gods a second race of men, 

Degenerate far — and silver years began. 

Unlike the mortals of a golden kind, 

Unlike in frame of limbs, and mould of mind, 

Nor feared they heaven : them angry Jove engulfed." 

The third race seem to have been located on this side the 
engulfing flood : 

" The sire of earth and heaven created then 
A race, the third, of many-languaged men ; 
Their thoughts were bent on violence alone, 
The deed of battle and the dying groan ; 
They by each others' hands inglorious fell, 
In horrid darkness plunged, the house of hell." 



HESIOD AND CALLIMACHUS. 



411 



Then comes the fourth age : 

" Them when the abyss had covered from the skies, 
Lo ! the fourth age on nurturing earth arise : 
Jove formed the race a better, juster line, 
A race of heroes, and of stamp divine; 
Lights of the age, that rose before our own 
As demi-gods, o'er earth's wide region known.'' 

This was the age of Hercules, and Cadmus, and the Tro- 
jan heroes. 

Then came the fifth or iron age, in which the poet 
lived : 

"Oh! would that nature had denied me birth 
Midst this fifth age, this iron age of earth ! 
Corrupt the age, with toils and griefs opprest, 
Xor day nor night can yield a pause of rest." 

A few passages from the part entitled "The "Works" 
will show what in it is agreeable to the scriptures, and 
what contrary to them. Honest industry is thus com- 
mended : 

"Love every seemly toil, that so the store 
Of foodful seasons heap thy garner's floor; 
From labor shalt thou with the love be blest 
Of men and gods — the slothful the)' detest." 

The worship of the heart and purity of life enjoined: 

"With thy best means perform the ritual part, 
Outwardly pure, and spotless at the heart, 
EV-r on thy nightly couch thy limbs be laid, 
Or when the -tar- from -acred sunrise fade.'' 

Love of friends and hatred of enemies enjoined : 

" Let friends, oft bidden, to thy feast repair, 
Let not a foe the -ocial moment share. 
Who loves thM love, him woo that friendly woos." 

Of brotherly love : 

" If he the first by word or deed offend, 
Doubly thy just resentment may descend. 



412 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



If, with conciliating love possest, 

He come atoning, clasp him to thy breast." 

Let the two foregoing sentiments be compared with the 
one enjoined on Christians. 

ON THE DAYS OF HESIOD. 

In the second part of the poem, called " The Days," he 
enjoins the strict observance of all the feasts and fasts of 
the pagan calendar. They are very numerous, and of 
divine appointment : 

" Lo ! these, the days appointed from above 
By the deep councils of all sapient Jove ; 
A decent heed thy slaves enjoin to pay, 
And well observe each Jove-appointed day." 

The most superstitious regard must be paid to all the 
changes of the moon, in sowing and planting. In every 
domestic operation they paid regard to her progress each 
day, such as the ignorant in some countries pay now : 

" Oh ! fortunate the man ! oh ! blest is he, 
Who skilled in these fulfils his ministry. 
He, to whose note the auguries are given, 
No rite transgressed, and void of blame to heaven." 

We add to the above a few lines of the poet Callima- 
chus, who nourished about two hundred and fifty years 
before Christ, and was coeval with the poet Aratus, from 
whom St. Paul quotes. This shows what had been added 
to the Theogony of Hesiod in the interval between the 
periods in which they lived. His hymn to Jupiter proves 
him to be in much doubt as to the birthplace of Jupiter, 
and he invokes the aid of the god to find it out : 

" But say, thou first and greatest power above, 
Shall I Dictean or Lycean Jove 
Attempt to sing? Who knows thy mighty line, 
And who can tell, except by power divine, 



HESIOD AND CALLIMACH ITS. 



413 



If Ida's li ills thy sacred birth may claim, 
Or fair Arcadia boast an equal fame ? 
The Cretans, prone to falsehood, vaunt in vain, 
And impious built thy tomb on Dicte's plain ; 
For Jove, the immortal king, shall never die, 
But reign o'er men and gods above the sky." 

But although the poet asserts his immortality, yet he 
adopts Ilesiod's account of his birth and birthplace: 

" In high Parrhasia Rhea bore the god, 
"Where gloomy forests on the mountains nod." 

Callimachus differs from those who held that the earth 
and heavens were divided between the three sons of Sat- 
urn, — Pluto, Neptune, and Jupiter: 

"Jove, yet a child, the prize of wisdom bears 
From both his brethren in maturer years, 
And both agreed the empire of high heaven, 
Though theirs by birthright, should to Jove be given : 
Yet ancient poets idle fictions tell 
That lots were cast for heaven, for earth, and hell. 
Chance placed not Jove in these divine abodes — 
Thy power, thy wisdom made thee king of gods!" 

Callimachus excels the poets before his day by ascribing 
the gift of virtue to Jupiter: 

" Oil ! from thy bright abodes let blessings flow, 
Grant health, grant virtue to mankind below ; 
For he with health is not completely blest, 
And virtu.' fails when health is not po-se-t. 
Then grant us both, for these united prove 
The choicest t>lc«sings man receives t'r Jove."' 

His hymn to Apollo also contains one passage which 
reminds us <>f the -criptures : 

" Depart, ye soul-* profane ! hence, hence ! oh I fly 
Far from thin holy place; Apollo's nigh. 
Ye bolts, tly back! ye brazen doors, expand! 
Lenp from your hinges! I'lin-liiis is at hand. 
Begin, young men, begin the saered song, 
Wake all your lyres, and to the dances throng, 



414 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Rememb'ring still The Power is seen by none 
Except the just and innocent alone. 
Prepare your minds, and wash your spots away 
That hinder men to view the all-piercing ray." 

We are reminded by these lines of the words of David, 
" Lift up your heads, O ye gates ! and the King of Glory 
shall come in ; " and of his resolve, " I will wash my 
hands in innocency ; so will I come to thine altar ; " and of 
even the words of our Lord himself, " Blessed are the pure 
in heart, for they shall see God." 

I conclude with the testimony of Callimachus to the im- 
mortality of the soul, as seen in the following epitaph ; 

" Beneath this tomb, in sacred sleep, 
The virtuous Saon lies, 
Ye passengers, forbear to weep— 
A good man never dies." 



CHAPTER XXX. 



ON TFIE THEOLOGY OF ^SCHYLUS AXD SOPHOCLES. 

For the following chapter I am chiefly indebted to Pro- 
fessor Tyler, of Amherst College, Massachusetts, who has 
kindly consented to my free use of his learned and valu- 
able article as published in the Andover Biblical Reposi- 
tory. 

jEschylus was a Greek tragedian, of noble family, who 
was born about the year 525 before Christ, and preceded 
Socrates and Plato more than a century. He was a fol- 
lower <>f Pythagoras. It is fabled that Hacehus appeared 
to him while watching the clusters of grapes in a vine- 
yard, and bade him turn his attention to tragic composi- 
tion. Under whatever influence he may have directed 
his talents to the composition of plays, we must rejoice in 
the testimony he bears to the remains of ancient truth in 
his day. 

THE GREEK DRAMA. 

There can be n<> greater misapprehension of the Creek 
drama, says l'n>t'c.-.<>r Tyler, than to judge of it by the 
modern theatre. They have little in common but the 
name. The modern drama is exhibited within doors, at 
night, and by gas or candle-light. The ancient drama was 
exhibited by day, in tin; open air, and with the broad, 
pure light of heaven. The modern theatre is a common 
building, and capable, at most, of containing only two or 



416 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



three thousand people. The Greek theatre counted its 
audience by tens of thousands. The modern theatre is a 
private speculation, and for the most part tilled and sus- 
tained by the worst and lowest class of the population. 
At Athens the theatre was a public institution, and the 
audience composed of the enlightened, refined, and sov- 
ereign people of Athens, together with the elite of all the 
other cities of Greece. The theatre, as it now exists in 
the cities of Europe and America, is generally, if not 
universally, a school of vice and crime. In its palmy days, 
in the Grecian cities, it was a school of good morals and 
religion, according to the light then remaining, and taught 
by the wisest and best men of those times. Greek trag- 
edy grew up in connection with their religious worship. 
The theatre, says an old Roman writer, " was invented 
for the worship of the gods and the delight of men." 
Strange as it may sound to modern ears, the Greek stage 
came nearer than anything else to the Greek pulpit ; — the 
people hung on the lips of lofty, grave tragedians for in- 
struction touching the origin, duty, and destiny of immor- 
tal beings. It was the express office of the chorus, which 
held the most prominent place in the ancient drama, to 
interpret the mysteries of Providence ; to justify the ways 
of God to men ; to plead the cause of truth, virtue, and 
piety. Hence it was usually composed of aged men, 
whose wisdom was fitted to instruct in the true and right, 
or of young women, whose virgin purity would instinct- 
ively shrink from falsehood and wrong. Greek tragedy 
carried men back to the origin of our race, up to the prov- 
idence of the gods, and on towards the retribution of 
another world. 

With few exceptions, the subjects are mythological. 
The characters are heroes and demi-gods — monsters, it 
may be, in crime, but their punishment is equally prodig 
ious, and sin and suffering always go together. They 



^ESCHYLUS AST) SOPHOCLES. 



417 



illustrate, by their lips and by their lives, the providence 
and retributive justice of God. Nor is prayer wanting 
in their liturgies ; for so were they called, since the cho- 
ruses consist, in a great measure, of direct addresses to 
the Deity. ./Eschvlus is preeminently the theological 
poet of Greece. The great problems which lie at the 
foundation of faith and practice, — the same problems 
which are discussed by Job and his three friends, — are 
the main staples of nearly all his tragedies. In this re- 
spect the sacred tragedies of ^Eschylus find their nearest 
counterpart in the Book of Job. On the whole, there is 
no book of which the reader of ^Eschylus will be more re- 
minded. The poet who most resembles him in modern 
times, is the Puritan poet of old England, Milton. The 
actors in the plays of xEsehylus handle the grand themes of 
theology very much as they are handled by the good and 
evil angels in " Paradise Lost. " Such is a true, but most 
unworthy abridgement of Professor Tyler's five most in- 
teresting opening pages. 

Before giving a brief analysis of the theology of ^Eschy- 
lus, we will only add that he supports the proposition 
for which we have contended throughout the preceding 
chapters, viz., that the more nearly tradition reached the 
beginning, the more of truth is in it. yEschylus, in his 
plays, acts on Plato's doctrine, who, in reference to the 
gods, s;iid, ''The subject is too great for us, for we must 
believe those who have spoken aforetime, who being, as 
they said, the offspring of the gods, doubtless knew their 
own sires, and must not be disbelieved when they tell us, 
as it were, things pertaining to their own household. " 

Who can Plato and yEschylus refer to as the gods, but 
mere deified heroes — mariners of the ark, whose descend- 
ants were regarded as the offspring of the gods, and who 
handed down the f-arliest traditions to the world { yEschy- 
lus agrees with Ilesiod and other poets, that, under the 
27 



418 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



reign of Saturn, the golden age of the world, a hetter race 
inhabited the earth, who were the companions of the gods 
and the favorites of heaven ; but that a great change took 
place, which provoked the anger of J upiter and brought 
his judgments upon them. These things soon became per- 
verted, and turned into fables and myths ; but, as Profes- 
sor Tyler well remarks, many of the heathen fables are 
doubtless the facts of revelation and primitive history in 
disguise. Even those myths which narrate the inter- 
course between gods and men, carnal and corrupt though 
they be, preserve while they pervert the memory of 
that intimate converse which God held with the patri- 
archs and first parents of our race. " May they not also," 
he says, " be regarded, like the Avaturs of the Hindoos, as 
fleshly anticipations and unconscious prophecies of Chris- 
tian truths ? " 

AESCHYLUS ON THK NATURE OF GOD AND THE GODS. 

Like all other pagan writers, he is inconsistent, contra- 
dictory, and confused, as to the one only true God. In 
his tragedies, Jupiter is generally represented so as to ac- 
cord with our ideas of the true God and Father of all, as 
set forth in scripture. He calls him " the Father of gods 
and men ; " " the universal cause ; " " the all-seer and all- 
doer;" "just and true ; " " king of kings ;" "of the happy 
most happy ; " " of the perfect, most perfect power ; " 
" The blessed Zeus. " He is sometimes spoken of as a 
" jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the 
children ; " one " who will by no means clear the guil- 
ty ;" one whose mysterious providence is an unfathom- 
able abyss. In the play of Agamemnon, he is like Moses ; 
he hesitates by what name to invoke the invincible Dei- 
ty. He was in truth an unknown God to him, as to the 
Athenians in the time of St. Paul. Sometimes he is the 



JESCHYLUS AND SOPHOCLES. 



419 



invincible deity of pantheism. lie is always high above 
the rest of the drama. Apollo and Athena are mere per- 
sonages in the drama, but Jupiter never. They, as in 
more ancient times in which the scenes were laid, walk 
the earth in human forms, and take part in the affairs of 
men ; but he, never. As Miiller, the German mytholo- 
gist, says, " Jupiter is the only real God, in the true sense 
of the word — the spirit that pervades and governs all 
things." And yet, like Homer and others, how often does 
he degrade Jupiter to a frail being, by imputing crimes 
and follies to him ? He also recognizes a number of infe- 
rior deities, subordinate to the supreme authority of Jupi- 
ter, and who are the messengers of his will and the active 
agents of his providence. As it is not good for cither god 
or man to be alone, so Jupiter must have his wife and 
children; and these children must, in their turn, have 
others. Each generation being removed more and more 
from the perfection of their first fathers, these became 
inferior deities, whom lie employs to manage the earth, 
differing in character, and being gods of the sea and land, 
the Furies, the Muses, the Fates, etc. 

There is also a class of gods who are hostile to Jupiter, 
and who are overthrown in battle by him. Atlas and 
Tvphon, with the Titans, feel his avenging power in 
Hades and Tartarus. Nor can we read of them without 
being reminded of those giants and mighty men, of whom 
Moses -peaks as -,«> ineiirring the displeasure of (iod be- 
fore the flood, and hringing destruction upon the world, 
and of those to whom St. Jude and St. IVter refer, saving, 
"(I. m| spared not the angels that sinned, hut cast them 
down to hell, or Tartarus, holding them bound in ever- 
lasting chains." 



420 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



JUPITER A8 BOUND BY FATE. 

Although Jupiter is sometimes said to be superior to 
fate, yet, as in Homer and others, he is identical with 
fate, and everything is made subject to irreversible des- 
tiny ; and yet this is, in some sense, connected with and 
influenced by prayer. Thus, in one of the plays it is said, 

" That which is fated may come to your praying." 

Professor Tyler justly remarks, " No Calvinist was ever a 
more strenuous asserter of the doctrine of decrees than 
the chorus in these dramas ; " " at the same time, no 
Methodist ever offered up more frequent or more fervent 
prayers." "When Thebes is defended, " the people must 
pray indeed, but look well to the fortification." Or, in the 
language of Cromwell to his Ironsides, " Trust Providence, 
but keep your powder dry." 



.ESCHYLUS ON JUPITEr's RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE. 

Our Lord says, " Ye have heard that it hath been said 
by them of old time, ' An eye for an eye and a tooth for 
a tooth.' " " We have this ancient saying," says Pro- 
fessor Tyler, " standing out with great prominence, and 
repeated again and again on the pages of ./Eschylus : " 

" 'Tis robber robbed and slayer slain ; for though 
Ofttimes it lags with measured blow for blow," 

yet 

" Vengeance prevaileth, 
"While great Jove liveth." 

Again, — 

" Blood for blood, and blow for blow, 
Thou shalt reap as thou didst sow. 
Age to age with hoary wisdom 
Speaketh this to man." 



iESCHYLUS AND SOPHOCLES. 



421 



Who can read these words without remembering the 
universal law proclaimed after the flood ? "Whoso shed- 
deth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed ; " or 
these words of our Lord, " Whoso taketh the sword, shall 
perish by the sword." 

THE DELAY OF THE DEITY IN PUNISHING THE WICKED. 

This is often dwelt upon byyEschylus. Other moralists 
of Greece often quoted an old proverb, "The mills of the 
gods grind late, but grind to powder." JEschylus has a 
striking passage on that subject: "Some are punished in 
the light of clay ; others in the dark twilight of life, with a 
lingering and overflowing flood of pains ; while for others 
is reserved the endless night of future retribution." How 
like is this to St. Paul's teaching, "Some men's sins are 
open beforehand, going before to judgment, and some they 
follow after." 

THE DOCTRINE OF A FL'TL'KE STATE OF KEWAEDS AND 
PUNISHMENTS. 

This is taken for granted throughout the works of yEs- 
clivlus; and much is said about the condition of the dead, 
especially of the wicked. On this subject he is most ter- 
rific ; but as to the resurrection of the body, he knows 
nothing. 

I conclude with a few striking passages from Professor 
Tyler's able article. 

"The same subjects which constitute the staple of the 
epic and tragic mythology <>f the (ireeks arc among the 
earliest and most prominent subjects of Mosaic history and 
legislation." 

After reciting passages from the Eumenides, one of the 
tragedies which set forth the most important truths bear- 



422 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



ing a strong resemblance to some of the facts and doc- 
trines of our holy religion, he says, " The ideas are found- 
ed deep in the religious nature of man ; they set forth the 
theology of ^Eschylus, and the better part of his contem- 
poraries ; and it must be confessed that his theology is 
surprisingly healthy, sound, and truthful, in its essential 
elements. The great doctrine of hereditary depravity, 
retribution, and atonement are there in their elements, as 
palpably as in the Sacred Scriptures. Would that modern 
poetry were equally true to the soul of man, the law of 
God, and the gospel of Christ. 

He then proceeds to speak of the manner in which the 
atonement is set forth, in the part in which Apollo and 
Zeus, Soter, or Jupiter, the Saviour, are made to take in 
the reconciliation, which forms the great theme of the 
tragedy. Pie thus concludes : " There certainly are, in 
the poets and philosophers of ancient times, not a little 
of truth and of resemblance to the great central facts of 
Christianity." 

THE THEOLOGY OF SOPHOCLES. 

In this part of the chapter I use again the labors of 
Professor Tyler in his two learned articles on the theology 
of Sophocles. Sophocles, according to Professor Anthon's 
article, in his edition of " Lempriere's Classical Diction- 
ary," was born about thirty years after ^Eschylus, and 
fifteen before Euripides. A statue of him has been dis- 
covered within the last twenty-five years, and is now in 
the museum of the Vatican, at Rome, which represents 
him, as to body, to be the perfection of beauty and sym- 
metry. In character he was most amiable, and said to be 
the favorite of men and gods. At the age of twenty -five 
he bore off the prize from all the competitors, among 
whom was the veteran iEschylus, who had been for thirty 



^SCHYLUS AND SOPHOCLES. 



423 



years the master of the Athenian 'stage. Twenty times 
did Sophocles bear off the first prize. He came on the 
theatre of life in time to celebrate the triumphs of Greece 
over the wealth and power of Persia, and left it only a 
little while before Athens yielded to Sparta in that strife 
in which the Grecian states were so exhausted as to pre- 
pare them fur the Macedonian yoke. Sophocles dwelt in 
the golden age of Athenian government, literature, and 
religion. His theology was not so strongly marked in its 
character, and had not so much of primeval tradition as 
that of iEschylus, but probably presented a fairer repre- 
sentation of the average sentiments of the Athenians in his 
day. Only seven out of one hundred of his tragedies have 
come down to our day, but these are probably among the 
best. We will select some passages from them, showing 
the prevailing views as to religion and morals. 

It seems, says Professor Tyler, as if, when they (the 
Greeks) advanced in time and progressed in the cultiva- 
tion of literature and art, they receded from the fountain 
of moral and religious truth, and the ideas of primeval 
revelation lost their vital power. In Sophocles more than 
in /Kschylus there is room for the feeling, in some passa- 
ges at least, that the gods are powers or personifications 
rather than persona. Still there are passages in which 
God appears with some distinctness. In one of the dramas 
Jupiter is called '"The all-controlling Jove;" and again, 

"Thou of the all-pervading eye, 
In heaven and by subject gods adored." 

In mother he is called "Jove all-beholding, all-direct- 
fog." 

The eternal ami unchanging character of divine law is 
also sometimes >et forth in such a manner as to remind 
us of the law of God written on the hearts of men : 
" Heaven's eternal law s would'st thou contemn ?" 



424 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



is the language of upbraiding in regard to one who would 
violate right. 

We read of one of whom it was said, 

" In every law divine, 
Which blooms with holiest awe above, 

A steadfast piety was thine, — 
The love of honor and the fear of Jove." 

Again, — 

" To contravene the firm, unwritten laws 
Of the just gods, thyself a weak, frail mortal ! 
These are no laws of yesterday : they live 
For ever more, and none can trace their birth." \ 

The supremacy of the divine over human laws is thus 
declared, in relation to one who plead the laws of the 
state in justification of an act in violation of divine law : 

" Dost thou revere them, 
When thou would' st trample on the laws of heaven ?" 



PIETY TO THE GODS. 

Piety, such as it was, is often strongly commended : 

" Revere the gods ! 
Second to this all else great Jove esteems. 
True piety alone defies the grave : 
Let mortals live, or die, this blooms forever." 

In his drama of Ajax, the father, at parting with him, 
upon setting out for Troy, says : 

" Seek, my son, in fight 
To conquer, but still conquer through the gods." 

To which the impious son replies : 

" I confide 

To win such trophies e'en without the gods." 



^ESCHYLUS AXD SOPHOCLES. 



425 



Even the pious sometimes utter sentiments showing 
their want of confidence in the gods. 

"Yet wherefore do I turn me to the gods? 
If acts like these are sanctioned by the gods, 
I will address me to my doom in silence." 

Another is made thus to 6peak of the infernal gods : 

" Tis a bootless task 
To render homage to the powers of hell." 

There are some passages which, though they savor 
somewhat of pagan pride and human glory, yet have 
also something of what scripture calls "a conscience void 
of offence," or the " metis conscia recti" of Horace. The 
doctrine of expediency rather than of justice is strongly 
6et forth in the following lines : 

" Yet know, prince, I deem it nobler far 
To fail with honor, then succeed by baseness." 

Again — 

" All must be ill 
When man the bias of his soul forsakes, 
And does a deed unseemly." 

Again,— 

" To live with glory, or with glory die, 
Befits the noble." 

Again,— 

" Conscious of right, 
The soul may proudly soar." 

The providence of God, in its retributive justice, is 
often set forth in the dramas of Sophocles : 

" If Themis reigns on high. 
And .love's blue lightnings rtrul the sky, 
E're long shall vengeance crush the guilty pair." 

Again,— 

" But when a house is struck by angry fate, 
Through all its line what censcless miseries flow." 



426 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



The respect paid to the dead, and the care with which 
their bodies were interred, or their ashes preserved ; the 
dread on the part of the dying lest they should be left 
unburied, — all point to the general belief of some kind of 
resurrection. The dramas are full of these things. 

So also as to sacrifices. The expiatory character of 
them runs through all the ancient dramas. "Reason about 
the justice of it as we may," says Professor Tyler, ' ; men 
have never been able to get rid of the idea of expiatory 
and vicarious sacrifice. In one form or other it pervades 
or underlies all religion, be it pagan, Mohammedan, Jew- 
ish, or Christian." But he justly concludes that " Holiness 
and sin are new ideas, almost new words as used in the 
Bible. The Bible convicts every man of personal sinful- 
ness in the sight of an holy God. The Jew and the 
Christian alone worship a God of holiness." " Glorious 
in holiness," is an idea which you cannot get " from all the 
poetry and philosophy of the sages." 

SOME EEMARKS ON THE EUMENIDES OF .ESCHYLUS. 

The learned C. O. Miiller, of Germany, has written a 
critical treatise on this drama, from which we quote some 
passages and draw some remarks which will be a fitting 
close of this chapter. 

In further proof of the comparative purity and religious 
character of the stage in the early times of Greece, as set 
forth in the beginning of this chapter, it deserves to be 
mentioned that not only must JEschylus himself train the 
members of the chorus for acting their part in the drama, 
but he must apply to the chief archon to appoint them. 
They are supposed to have been from twelve to fifteen for 
each play, — respectable men, matrons, and virgins. The 
place in which this was acted was either the temple of 
Minerva, or the precincts of it on the Acropolis of Athens. 
During the service, the very Adytum, or Omphalos, or 



^ESCHYLUS AND SOPHOCLES. 



427 



Holy of Holies is displayed, and Orestes the parricide is 
seen, covered with hlood, in that sacred place. In this, 
as in other tragedies of zEschylns, the mythic or ancient 
is mingled with the political or present history of Athens. 
Shakspeare lias copied somewhat after this model in 
his historical plays. The theatre, in the time of iEschy- 
lns, was, in a measure, a political arena, on which great 
questions of state were discussed hy the help of the 
ancient myths. At a late period, Demosthenes, Pericles, 
and others, by their oratory in the great assemblies of the 
people, swayed the multitude at pleasure, the Areopagus 
having become comparatively powerless. The Areopagus 
was present at the exhibition ot the tragedies of yEschy- 
lus, and acted as judge. iEschylus was the great defender 
of the declining rights and powers of the Areopagus, and 
would be regarded as an aristocrat in our times. De- 
mocracy was gaining ground. Any citizen might become 
an arclmn, and any archon an areopagite, which was not 
so in former days. /Eschylus was the friend of Aristides, 
and took part with him against Theinistocles, who was 
the man of the people. lie warned the people against 
the abuse of their power, and against a warlike and am- 
bitious spirit toward the other states of Greece. 

The basis of this tragedy was the murder of Clytemnes- 
tra by her sou Orestes. lli> mother had married Aga- 
memnon, king of Argos. On leaving for the Trojan war, 
he committed the care of his wife and family to (Egys- 
thus, a relative. During the war, (Egysthus married Cly- 
temnestra, and they united in murdering Agamemnon on 
his return. Orestes Hies to some other state, but after an 
exile of seven years returns with his friend 1'yladea to 
Myceiue, and kills both his mother and (Egysthus. lie is, 
however, tormented by the furies or avenging goddesses, 
though patronized by Apollo. 15eing tried, according to 
the play, before the Areopagus, — the high court of Athens, 



428 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



— lie is acquitted by the decision of Minerva, who either 
gives the casting vote in his favor, — the judges being 
equally divided,— or else, one vote being wanted to make 
them equal, she effects a tie by her vote, and thus determin- 
ed the principle which is to this day acted upon, that where 
the judges are equally divided the accused is acquitted. 

But the use I would make of this tragedy, (according to 
the plan of my book,) is to show the resemblance between 
the story, and the doctrine and general usage of the pagan 
world, in relation to manslaughter and murder, and what 
we find in the Sacred Scriptures. The first murder men- 
tioned in scripture is that of Abel by Cain. The punish- 
ment inflicted is banishment from the country where the 
deed was done, and perpetual wandering over the earth, 
with the dread of death from all whom he might meet. 
The next mention made of this crime and its punishment 
is immediately after the flood, when to the renewed race 
of men this universal law with its penalty is ordained : 
"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be 
shed ; for in the image of God made he man." Who 
should be the executor of this divine vengeance, whether 
the civil magistrate, or some relative or relatives of the de- 
ceased, is not mentioned. The simple decree is uttered, 
with a most impressive reason for its execution, viz : " For 
in the image of God made he man." But after the re- 
newal of the prohibition of murder, from Mount Sinai, in 
these solemn words, " Thou shalt not kill," or " Thou 
shalt do no murder," the mode and instrument of the exe- 
cution of the penalty is minutely detailed. In the midst of 
wrath, from the insult offered to the divine majesty in the 
destruction of one made in his own image, God remem- 
bers mercy in behalf of those who have shed man's blood 
accidentally, or without deliberate intent so to do. They 
must be, indeed, to some extent wanderers, like the first 
man-slayer ; they must flee from the place where the deed 



.ESCHYLUS AND SOPHOCLES. 



429 



was clone, and from the presence of the aggrieved relative ; 
but cities of refuge were prepared for them, whither they 
might flee until the character of the act was examined, 
and the grief of the bereaved was calmed. But for the 
wilful murderer there was no mercy. lie might be seized, 
even though holding by the horns of God's altar, and put 
to death. The divine legislator of Israel has here given a 
law and set an example to men, which, however con- 
demned by some of the wise of this world, and neglected 
by legislators and magistrates, we doubt not is the most 
effectual that can be devised for the preservation of human 
life. The failure to inflict the penalty of death on wilful 
murderers has been the occasion of the deaths of thousands 
of the best citizens of earth. Such are the tender mercies 
of man, when he would be more merciful than God. 

Let us now see how far this law and will of God, whether 
coming down from our antediluvian or postdiluvian fore- 
fathers through different branches of the Noachian family, 
or borrowed from the Hebrews, God's chosen people, is 
sustained by the practice and laws of ancient Greece, 
as set forth in this tragedy of yEschvlus, and elsewhere. In 
the states of Greece as in Judea, though the wilful mur- 
derer has no provision of mercy made for him, yet the 
man-slayer lias. He may fly the country, and wander 
about from place to place, seeking to be allowed some 
expiatory rites by some friendly king whereby he may be 
restored to his country. Sometimes, as in the case of Her- 
cules, he may appease the Erinnys or ghost of the deceased, 
by selling himself into servitude ; sometimes by the sacri- 
fice of animal.". " Hlood for bl 1 was the law," unless 

the slain, on his death-bed, pronounced forgiveness. The 
nearest relatives of the slain were I he avengers. At the 
burial a spear was stuck up in the grave, to be plucked 
np and borne away by the rightful avenger. Sometimes 
the proper avenger would petition the government to un- 



430 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



dertake the work of vengeance, and thus be relieved. Un- 
til or unless some one of these things was done, the man- 
slayer was prohibited entrance into any of the temples of 
religion, or participation in any sacrifices, or to come into 
the town-hall, but was an object of commiseration. So dear 
was the life of man to the gods, according to the pagan 
system ; though it was not because he Avas made after the 
image of God, as the scriptures declare, but because, ac- 
cording to their philosophy, he was a part of God, — a part 
of one universal life, of which the great cause was the 
head ; and to murder a man was to assault the Deity. This 
was their perversion of the true history of man's creation. 
There was something peculiar in the case of Orestes, which 
caused the judges to hesitate and divide. Though he was the 
rightful avenger of his father's death, yet a parricide could 
not be forgiven, and he had murdered his mother and her 
wicked accomplice. On this account he was tortured by 
the Erinnyses, or Furies, and fled from his kingdom and 
became a wanderer, like Cain and the man-slaying fugi- 
tives of Israel. 

And who were these Erinnyses, or Furies, or, as after- 
wards called, Eumenides? The name comes, we are told, 
from a word which signifies " The deep offence and bitter 
displeasure" of those who have a right to be angry, as of 
parents slain by their children. The ghosts of murdered 
parents were considered the most terrific and tormenting 
of all the Furies. At length some of these became regular 
deities, with the name of Eumenides. These deities were 
introduced upon the stage in the tragedies, and were most 
fearful objects. 

Although even the unintentional man-slayer, — of whose 
weapon it might be said, according to Cicero, " Majis 
fugit quam jacit" — rather flew from the hand, than was 
thrown, — was still obliged to fly, yet we find a difference 
made between the guilt of those who committed murder 



^ESCHYLUS AXD SOPHOCLES. 



431 



under some sudden impulse, and those who did it " of 
malice aforethought." The former was ascribed to Ate, 
the goddess of hate, who confounded the mind and de- 
stroyed reason for a time ; hence the goddess Ate " has in 
her train the litffi, or humble prayers of penitence, which 
must make good before gods and men whatever has been 
done amiss. " 

I conclude, in a few words, with the opinion of Miiller, 
as to Jupiter Soter : "The conception and worship of him 
were widely dift'used through Greece.'' " Among the con- 
vivial customs of the Greeks, nothing is more familiar than 
their three solemn draughts after meals. The first is con- 
secrated to Olympian Jove; the second to the earth and 
heroes; the third to Jupiter Soter." He is called "the 
lord of both worlds," and " the good deity," reconciling 
differences. Mr. M. considers him as " interposing in the 
character of a consummating Saviour God." Such is the 
opinion of many other learned men, who consider that the 
idea of a Jupiter Soter grew out of the ancient tradition 
and expectation of some divine Deliverer or Peace-maker. 



CHAPTEE XXXI. 

ON OVID'S METAMORPHOSES, AND LIBEK TRISTItTM. 

PART FIRST. 

There was something so peculiar and touching in the 
character and fate of Ovid, that more than usual mention 
of him will be excused. He was born 911 years after the 
building of Rome, and lived until between forty and fifty 
years before the birth of Christ. He was an Epicurean in 
principle, and being among the few poets who possessed 
the means of voluptuous living, made good use of it in 
the court of Augustus Csesar, with whom he was a great 
favorite for many years. Coming under the displeasure 
of the emperor for some cause about which there is a 
diversity of opinion among his annotators, he was ban- 
ished to Pontus, in Scythia, then a most barbarous coun- 
try. Of it he says, "Nobis habitabitur orbis ultimus. 
A terra, terra remota mea." Of its inhabitants he gives 
this fearful picture : " Vox fera, trux vultus, verissima 
martis imago." So wretched was his life while there, 
that he says, " Mors mihi munus erit" — " Death will be 
a favor to me." While in this place of exile he wrote his 
"Tristium," consisting of letters to his old friends at Pome. 
In these we have the only intimations from himself of the 
cause of his banishment. Some have alleged that an ac- 
cidental discovery of some secret or secrets in the family 
of Augustus, most discreditable to it, was the real cause 
of his disgrace and exile. It is to be hoped that such was 
not the case. If it were so, a more effectual method could 



ON OVID*S METAMORPHOSES. 



433 



not have been adopted for spreading abroad the shame of 
Augustus, and of transmitting it to posterity, than so 
heavy a judgment on so favorite a poet. AVe would 
rather hope that public opinion and the private judgment 
of the emperor condemned those works of Ovid which 
were calculated to promote the licentiousness of Rome, 
and which were chiefly embodied in his work entitled, 
" De Arte Amandi," or "The Art of Love," and to which 
the displeasure of xVugustus was ascribed. 

Although there are hints in his writings that there may 
have been some other cause, either in whole or in part, yet 
to this, whether from fear of some worse punishment, or 
from regard to truth, he seems to ascribe all his woes, 
though he thinks his judgment a heavy one. If he was 
really banished as the corrupter of the age, then it shows 
a strange inconsistency between the improving sense of 
morality at that day under the teaching of Cicero, Kpic- 
tetuSj and others, and the continued religious worship of 
Rome, in which, Ovid declares, worse things were to be 
seen than in his book. 

The very inscription on his tomb, however, seems to 
settle the question: ''Qui jacet hie, teneri doctor anioris 
erat." The same al>o shown in the following lines of 
Angelus I'olitiamis, in his '* Klegia de exilio et mortc 
Ovidii : " 

" Et jaret Euxinis vatcs Koinanus in oris, 
Koinammi \ateiu l>arl>ara terra togit 
Terra t«v''' vatcm li-ncro- <|ni lo>it amorcs, 
Itnrliara i|iiain p-liilis allnit Istcr a«|iiis. 
Nona erat. I'rocul ah conjux, parvi rjue ncpotes, 
Ncc fucrat profu^om nata sccuta patrcm. 
Kxtinclum ct monies iMwImnt et aylvaj fenjuquc, 
Kt (lesse in meiliis <lit:itur Ister aquis." 

Ihit lii- own words estahlish the fact, that Ins hook was 
the alleged cause of lii.-< haiiislimetit. On sendm" liis 
letter.-- tVoui I'ontu.-, to he puhli*hcd at Koine, lie savs, 



434 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



, " Vade sed incultus, qualem decet exulis esse, 

Inspice, die, titulum. Non sum preceptor amoris 
Quas meruit poenas, jam dedit illud opus." 

But though here he seems to acknowledge that he de- 
served punishment for it, yet he repeatedly professes in- 
nocence of intention : 

" Si me meus abstulit error 
Stultaque mens nobis, non scelerata fuit." 

And again, — 

" Conscius in culpa non scelus esse sua." 

He declares, also, that he did not practise the things con- 
demned in his book : 

" Crede mihi, mores distant a carmine, 
Vita verecunda est; musa jocosa mihi." 

Moreover, he declares that he only set forth in his verses 
the things which were exhibited in the public places and 
in the temples at Rome : 

" Ludi quoque semina proebent 
Nequitise. Tolli tota theatra jube 
Tollatur circus. Non tuta licentia circi. 
Quis locus est templis augustior ? hcec quoque vitet." 

He then proceeds to enumerate some of the licentious 
scenes exhibited in the very temples, being painted or en- 
graved on the walls, and over the gates or doors. It was 
doubtless somewhat in the ancient as in the present world, 
that some things were tolerated in public which would not 
be endured in private. Some things were heard and seen 
at theatres and circuses which must not be heard or looked 
on elsewhere. 

At such a time and in such a place, it may be difficult 
to decide on the amount of guilt belonging to the author 



ON OVID'S METAMORPHOSES. 



435 



of a book that could adduce such a sanction ; but that it 
was and is a most injurious book, no pure mind can now 
question. Still, his sufferings in the savage wilds of 
Scythia have ever touched the heart of humanity, and 
no one can read the account which he gives of the sudden 
announcement of the severe decree, and his immediate ban- 
ishment, without deep emotion. And should the youthful 
reader find a tear stealing down his cheek at the recital 
of the farewell scene, he need not be ashamed of it. The 
decree was communicated on the very night on which he 
was commanded to depart : 

" Cum subit illius tritissima noctis imago, 
Quae mihi suprenum tempus in urbc fuit, 
Cum repeto noctem quae tot mihi cara reliqui 
Labitur ex oculis, nunc quoquc gutta meis 
Non alitur stupui quan qui, jovis ignibus ictus, 
Vivit, et est vitae nescius ipse suae, 
Si licet exemplis, in parvo, grandibus uti, 
Haec fiicies Trojae, cum caperetur crat." 

The following is the inimitable description of the part- 
ing scene : 

" Ter lirnen tctigi ; tcr sum revocatus, ct ipse, 
Indulgcns anitno, |>cs mihi tanlus erat. 
Saepc vale dicto; nusus sum multa locutus 
F'.t quasi disredens, oscula summa <lc-<li, 
Sa;pc cadem mandata deli ; mcquc ipse fcfelli, 
Rcspicien* oculis pignovn cara meis 

Dcniquc, quid propcro ? Scythia est quo mittimus inquam. 

Roma relinquenda est ; utraqiic justa mora est ; 

Uxor, in ctemum, viro mihi viva ncgatur ; 

Kt domus, i-t lidir didci.-i mi-inbra domus." 

Tutu vcm conjux, hiimcris ahc-untis inhcrens 

Miscuit lurr larrymi* tristia dicta suis. 

Non [K>tes avclli ; simiil, ah simul iliimus, inquit 

Tc scquar, ct conjux exulis exul cro. 

Tejubet patria di.nccdixe GmbIi ira 



436 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Me pietas ; pietas hec mihi Caesar erit 
Talia tentabat sic et tentaverat ante." 

It deserves to be mentioned, in proof of the extent to 
which the flattery of great men was then carried, and 
which, in earlier times, laid the foundation of idolatry, 
that Ovid, hoping to propitiate the favor of Tiberitis, the 
successor of Augustus Caesar, actually built a temple to 
him, and offered daily sacrifices to him in the wilds of 
Pontus. On his way to Pontus, when a great storm 
arose, he begs the gods to spare the vessel and not to 
unite in Csesar's wrath, saying, " Saepe, premente Deo, 
fert Deus alter opem" — thus making Augustus one of the 
gods even while alive. 

It may now be asked of us, before entering on the con- 
sideration of Ovid's "Metamorphoses," if there be not 
much in them not only of the marvellous and unintelli- 
gible, but of the shocking and indelicate, calculated to 
disgust and pollute the mind, so as to make it an im- 
proper book for the young, at any rate without many 
omissions and expurgations. "VVe answer, it is even so, 
and therefore some of the fables are omitted; and yet 
these are not of the nature of his "Art of Love," but are 
the allegories of the ancient pagans by which they set 
forth the traditions concerning the creation, the traditions 
of their gods, and the early history of man. 

So corrupted had every thing concerning religion become 
in the hands of men, that it was impossible to describe the 
same without shocking purity and modesty. Thus must 
the Sacred Scriptures often shock us in order to do their 
work faithfully instead of deceitfully, in suppressing the 
truth. Ovid's "Metamorphoses" is a compendious his- 
tory, in verse, of all the ancient traditions in relation to 
God, and the gods of the pagan world, and the ancient 
history of man. They are not fables and allegories of his 



ox ovid's metamorphoses. 



437 



own invention, but those which he has collected from dif- 
ferent sources, putting them into some order, and clothing 
them with verse. On this account it has ever been the 
favorite book with the fathers, and with all who wished 
to find out the earliest traditions of the heathen world. 
These were the very fables of the ancient world of which 
Plato and other philosophers often spoke as containing so 
much of primitive truth ; but many of which they could 
not understand. Nor can we at this day interpret them, 
although Ovid, coming nearly four hundred years after 
Plato, and having better advantages, has taken great 
pains to find out and explain their meaning. Plato, in 
his imaginary "Republic," has said, " That mothers and 
nurses should season the tender minds of their children 
with these instructive fables, where the wisdom of the 
ancients was involved." Lactantius calls him "an ingen- 
ious poet, and the 'Metamorphoses' an excellent poem;" 
St. Hierome styles him "a renowned poet;" St. Augus- 
tine, "The excellent poet." Erasmus ascribes to him the 
perfection of eloqifence. Marcus Antoninus Tritoiieus 
Bays, " Never was there any one who so diligently col- 
lected, or so elegantly, learnedly, and orderly expressed 
the fables but Ovid, who composed out of Orpheus, He- 
Mod. Homer, and others of the ancient poets, so excellent 
and noble a work." 

Bernardus Martinus .-ays, " Ovid, out of the innumer- 
able volumes of the Orecian poets, tirst gathered their 
multiplicity of fable-, and with g'-eat care composed out 
of them hit divine poem" 

Jacobus Micyllus says, " What should I speak of its 
learning? herein so great, so various, >n abstruse, that 
many places have neither been explained nor understood ; 
no, not by the most learned, requiring rather a revelation 
from the Delian < )raele. " 

In the face of these testimonies to the unfathomable 



438 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



depths of Ovid's learning, it may well be asked how 
I should dare to venture an attempt at understanding him, 
and making use of him for the object of this book. To 
this I answer, " that, like the scriptures, some parts of 
Ovid are deep enough to drown an elephant, while others 
are so shallow that a lamb may walk over." In other words, 
some parts of Ovid so plainly accord with scripture, that 
none can misunderstand them, although there be others that 
will baffle the ingenuity of the most learned. I will, how- 
ever, relieve myself from all charge of presumption by 
informing the reader of two works which I have before 
me, and from which I shall derive what may be presented 
on the resemblance between Ovid's Metamorphoses and 
the Sacred Scriptures. The first of these is a translation 
of the work by Mr. George Sandys, executed in the wilds 
of Virginia, at Jamestown, a few years after the settle- 
ment there. Mr. Sandys was the son of that noble re- 
former, and bold defender of civil and religious freedom, — 
Edwin Sandys, Bishop of Worcester, then of London, 
and afterwards Archbishop of York. " His second son, Sir 
Edwin, was secretary of the Virginia Company in Lon- 
don. George Sandys was the treasurer of the colony in 
Virginia, was educated by the celebrated Hooker, and 
after travelling through Europe, Egypt, and the Holy 
Land, joined the colony at Jamestown in the year 1611. 
There he devoted his leisure hours to a translation of 
Ovid, and to the preparation of a mass of learned my- 
thological notes, equally creditable to his head and 
heart. It was first published in England in 1627, and 
dedicated to Prince Charles, afterwards Charles the First. 
In his dedication, he speaks of its " being limned by that 
imperfect light which was snatched from the hours of night 
and repose. " He speaks of it as "a double stranger, 
springing from the stock of the ancient Romans, but bred 
in the New World, of the rudeness of which it cannot but 



ox ovid's metamorphoses. 



439 



participate, especially having wars and tumults to bring 
it to light, " instead of the Muses. Alluding to the notes, 
lie says, " To this I have added ' Mind to the Body ' — 
The history and philosophical sense of the Fables. " In 
his poetical preface, he says, 

"Phoebus, Apollo, sacred poesy . 
Thus taught : for in these ancient fables lie 
The mysteries of all philosophic" 

He speaks of the fables as not being Ovid's ; for he 
says, " Most of them were more antient than any extant 
author, or perhaps than letters themselves, before which, 
as they expressed their conceptions in hieroglyphics, so 
did they their philosophy and divinity under fables and 
parables ; a way not untrod by the sacred penmen. " In 
writing these notes he appears to have consulted a large 
number of ancient authors from among the fathers, and 
the Greek and Roman writers, especially Plato. 

On his return to England he wrote other translations, 
particularly one of tlie Psalms, which was highly esteem- 
ed. Both Dryden and Pope spoke highly of his poetical 
talents. In him and in his brother Edwin we have addi- 
tional proofs of the zealous piety which was called into 
action in the first settlement of Virginia. 

In my quotations from Ovid I shall use the translation 
of George Sandys in connection with the Latin text, and 
shall also make fro use of his notes. 

The other book to which I referred is the edition of 
Ovid, with notes critical and mythological, by N. C. 
I5r<>ok, A. M.. Professor of the Greek and Latin lan- 
guages, and late Principal of the Baltimore High School. 
It' all the teacher-, of youth and editors of the ( 'lassies had 
but followed the example of Professor Brook, then classical 
education, instead of ministering to scepticism and immo- 
rality, would have been a useful handmaid to Christian- 



440 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



ity. I propose to make free use of this book also. I now 
proceed to examine some parts of the Metamorphoses. 



" Ante mare et tellus et quod tegit omnia coelum, 
Unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe, 
Quem dixere chaos, rudis indigestaque moles ; 
Nec quicquarn, nisi pondus, iners conjestaque eodem, 
Non bene junctarum discordia seminarerum." 

" The sea, the earth, all-covering heaven unframed, 
One face had nature, which they Chaos named ; 
An indigested lump, a barren load, 
"Where jarring seeds of things ill-joined abode." 

Ovid then describes the manner in which earth and 
heaven brought order ont of chaos or confusion, and sepa- 
rated earth and heaven : 

" Hunc Deus et melior litem natura diremit." 

"But God, the better nature, this decides, 
Who earth from heaven, the sea from earth divides." 

But soon after, with the inconsistency and uncertainty of 
the poets, he says : 

" Sic ubi dispositam, quisquis fait ille deorum, 
Conjeriem secuit, sectamque in membra redigit." 

" What god soever the division wrought, 
And every part to due proportion brought." 

Mr. Sandys, in his preface, has beautifully described 
the arrangement and harmony of all things by the Deity, 
under the name of Love, by which title some of the an- 
cient fables called the first of the gods : 

"Fire, earth, air, water,— all theopposites 
That strove in chaos, powerful Love unites, 
And from their discord drew this harmony 
Which smiles in nature." 



ox ovid's metamorphoses. 



Mr. Sandys says that Ovid is not at all afraid to call 
God the creator of the world. lie confesses God, nor dis- 
guiseth his name, whom he also calls " The better na- 
ture ; " so that by God and " the better nature," he un- 
derstands Ovid to mean the same thing ; and not God and 
plastic nature, as some suppose. God was the better na- 
ture by comparison with chaos or matter, or, as some 
of the philosophers said, "Mind," or " Reason," which 
was the name for God. Deus in Latin is the same with 
Theos in Greek ; and that comes from Theo, to dispose or 
arrange. This accords, not only with the account given 
by Moses of God's ordering or arranging everything out of 
chaos by word or command, but with the general idea of 
the ancients that God was the great architect of the world, 
— only that they do nut ascribe to him the original creation 
of the materials out of which the world was made. Mr. 
Brook quotes Sophocles as recognizing a God who not 
only disposed all things, but created them: 

"There is really but one fiod, — 
The maker of heaven ami earth 
And sea and winds." 

A passage from Orpheus is still stronger: " He is one 
self-begotten; by him alone are all things which have 
been made." Mr. Brook very justly remarks, that " Quis- 
quis, fuit ille Deoruin,'' who disposes all things, seems to 
have been ;m unknown ( rod to Ovid, though he, doubt- 
less, with the heathen generally, assigned every thing to 
one supreme God. 

We now pass on to Ovid's account of the formation of 
man, only remarking that his account of the formation 
or ordering of nil other thing- is so much alter the man- 
ner of Moses, that it is not wonderful that some suppose 
him to be indebted to the books of Moses, or the writings 
of the .Jewish rabbis, for some of his statements. 



4:42 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



According to Moses, when God had completed every 
thing in heaven above, and in the earth beneath, he made 
man to rule over all other animals. The same order is 
observed by Ovid : 

" Sanctius his animal, mentisque capacius altse 
Deerat adhuc, et quod dominari coetera posset. 
Natus homo est ; sive hunc divino semine fecit 
Ille opifcx rerum ; mundi melioris origo. 
Sive recens tellus, seductaque nuper ab alto 
Ethere, cognati, retinebat semina coeli, 
Quam satus Japeto mistam fluvialibus undis 
Finxit, in effigiem moderantum cuncta Deorum, 
Pronaque cum spectent ammalia coetara terram 
Os homini sublime dedit coelumque tueri 
Jussit et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus 
Sic, modo quae fuerat rudis, et sine imagine tellus 
Induit ignotas hominum conversa figuras." 

" The noble creature with a mind possest 
"Was wanting yet, that should command the rest ; 
That maker, the best world's original, 
Either him framed of seed celestial, 
Or earth, which late he did from heaven divide, 
Some sacred seeds retained, to heaven allied, 
Which with the living stream Prometheus mixt, 
And in that artificial structure fixt 
The form of all the all-ruling deities ; 
And whereas others see with down-cast eyes, 
He with a lofty look did man endue, 
And bade him heaven's transcendent glories view : 
So that rude clay, which had no form before, 
Thus changed, of man the unknown figure bore." 

Of this passage Sandys says, " The last in act, but the 
first in intention, was the creation of man. Sprung of 
celestial seed, in regard to the essence of his soul ; made 
of the earth, to teach him humility, yet after the image 
of God, not only with regard to his original integrity, but, 
as some think, in the symmetry and beauty of his body, as 
that shall be glorified and clad with a sun-like brightness." 



ox ovid's metamorphoses. 



443 



As to Prometheus, the son of Japheth, or Japheth him- 
self bringing fire from heaven to animate the clay into 
man, he quotes Augustine, " who reports him to be a man 
of great wisdom, who informed the rude minds with 
knowledge, and raised them to celestial speculations and 
astronomical discoveries." Some said that he lived in the 
days of Jupiter, when temples and idols began to erected, 
and that he was the first who ever made statues. 

Mr. Brook illustrates and confirms the account of man's 
formation, by many ancient authorities. " Sanctius ani- 
mal," he says, must mean a more divine animal ; " Di- 
vino semine," or " cognati cceli," as though the earth, 
just separated from the heavens, had in it a divine seed, 
from which men might spring up like unto the gods. 
Cicero asks, "Are we to suppose that the divine seed fell 
from heaven upon this earth, and that man sprang up in 
the likeness of his celestial sires?" He elsewhere says 
that man was a wonderful animal — "Generatum a supre- 
mo Deo, preclara quadem conditione." lie also speaks 
of man as being related to heaven, "as being his former 
habitation," from which he came. Moses' account of 
man is, " that God formed his body of the dust of the 
earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;" 
that thus God made man in his own image. In the New 
Testament we are told that "the image or likeness consists 
in knowledge or holiness." Pythagoras says, " Man, the 
lord of creation, partakes of the nature of the gods." 
Cicero says, " Human virtue approaches nearer the di- 
vinity than the human form." The human race, says 
Orpheus, according to Cedrenus, was formed by an im- 
mediate act of the I)city, and received from him a rea- 
sonable sold ! Virgil calls the soul "an ethereal sense ;" 
Horace, " a particle of breath divine." The latter says 
"that God made man capable of things divine:" 

"To beasts the breath of life, to iu a living soul." 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



" The supreme God," says Jamlieus, " is a monad, or one 
prior to the first god and king ; immovable in the solitude 
of his unity ; the fountain of all things, and the root of 
all primary intelligible forms ; the indivisible one, the first 
of effigies." The pagan mythologists and philosophers are 
full of the doctrine of the great God as forming all things 
after the pattern of himself, — man above all. 

" Though but an atom in immensity, 
I hold a middle rank 'twixt heaven and earth : 
The chain of being is complete in me." 

It is somewhat remarkable that Ovid says nothing of 
the formation of woman. Mr. Brook is struck with this, 
and not only refers to what Plato says as to the two-fold 
nature of the first man, but quotes one of the hymns of 
Orpheus addressed to Protogonus, the first-born, — who 
was certainly Adam, — and in which he calls him two- 
fold : 

" Oh mighty, first-begotten, hear my prayer, 
Two-fold ! " * 

In regard to Ovid's description of man's form, — " Os 
homini sublime dedit," — it is worthy of remark, that the 
Greek word for man, anthropos, signifies " to direct the 
countenance upwards." Cicero says, " when he made all 
the animals to feed on the ground, he made man upright, 
to excite him to view the heavens." Ovid says, 

" Quod loquor et spiro, coelumque et lumina solis 
Aspicio, (possumque ingratus et immenor esse) 
Ipse dedit." 

Concerning Ovid and others, Mr. Sandys remarks, 
"That the ancient poets among the heathen preserved 
that truth of the immortality of the soul ; and therefore 
Epicurus, who maintained the contrary, dehorted his 
scholars from reading them." 

* Taylor's Orpheus. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



OX OVIL)'s METAMORPHOSES. PABT SECOND. 

If it be true that these books contain the sum and sub- 
stance of all the ancient tables of all countries, and that 
these tables contain the sum and substance of all ancient 
religion and philosophy, then I need oft'er no apology for 
a second chapter on the same. We now enter on Ovid's 
account of the four ages of the world. They are succes- 
sive periods of the world, represented under the fables or 
allegories of the four metals, — gold, silver, brass, and iron, 
— eaeh deteriorating from the preceding in value and ex- 
cellence. In like manner, the prophet Daniel represents 
the four great monarchies of the ancient world l.y a huge 
image, wh.>-r head was of fine gold, arms and breasts 
of silver, his belly and thighs of brass, and whose legs 
and feel were part of iron and part of clay. Jlesiod adds 
to the four age* a tilth, which may perhaps answer to the 
M part of clay " in the prophet Daniel. 

The golden age is thus described by Ovid : 

" A oral prima sata est GBtU, <pia vindicc nullo, 
Spontc sua, sine lege, fidem rectumr|tic colobot, 
I'n-iia iih Iii-i|iii: ul.rrant : nrc vrrliam miliaria lixn 
.]•'.<• Ii ^rhantiir, hit supplrx lurlia (im-daiit, 
Judicis ora .sui ; Ked eranl sine judicc tuti, 
Nmi trali-i, non cnsiH crant ; sine mililis usu 
Mitllia .-•■i-i i r:«- |irra^r)>alit < >tia priilr-. 
Yrr rrat rU-rmim pnddlqiM tcprtitilius tOTis, 
Mulccbant zcpliiri imtos, sivc Bciuinu Huris. 



446 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Flumina jam lactis, jam flumina nectaris ibant, 
Flavaque de viridi stillabant illice mella." 

" The golden age was first, which, uncompelled, 
And without rule, in faith and truth excelled : 
As then there was nor punishment nor fear, 
Nor threatening laws in brass prescribed were ; 
Nor suppliant, crouching prisoners shook to see 
Their angry judge, but all was safe and free ; 
Nor swords nor arms were yet ; no trenches round 
Besieged towns, — nor strifeful trumpet's sound: 
The soldiers of no use. In firm content 
And harmless ease their happy days were spent. 
'Twas always Spring. Warm zephyrs sweetly blew 
On smiling flowers, which without setting grew ; 
With milk and nectar were the rivers filled, 
And honey from green holly oaks distilled." 

Hesiod, from whom doubtless Ovid borrowed, says of 
the first inhabitants of the earth, — 

" Like gods they lived, 
Secure in mind, nor sweat with toil, 
Nor grieved. Death was as soft as sleep." 

Mr. Sandys, with other commentators, considers that 
the Sabbatical year among the Jews was instituted to rep- 
resent this period of innocence in the golden age, when 
they neither sowed their fields nor had a propriety in the 
fruits of the earth, which they voluntarily offered. " Sat- 
urn," he says, " under whose reign this state of things 
existed, is feigned to be the son of Ccelus, or heaven, and 
of Cybele, or earth ; so Adam had God for his father, and 
the earth of which he was made for his mother. Saturn 
was the first who invented or used tillage, and the first 
who ever reigned as king ; so was this the case with Adam. 
Saturn was thrown out of heaven, Adam out of paradise. 
Saturn is said to devour his children ; Adam overthrew his 



ox ovid's metamorphoses. 



447 



whole posterity. Saturn hid himself from Jove, and Adam 
from the presence of Jehovah." Mr. Brook and others 
consider the saturnalia at Rome, — when all labor was sus- 
pended, and servants were exempted from their usual 
duties, — to have been instituted in honor of this first age 
of felicity in the time of Saturn or Adam. "The ancients 
who were nearest the gods," says Diccarchus, " were of an 
excellent disposition, and led so good lives that they were 
called a ' golden race.' " " The first men," says Tacitus, 
" before appetite and passion swayed them, lived without 
bribes and without iniquity, and needed not to be re- 
strained from the fear of evil through punishment." As 
to the perpetual spring, some of the learned have main- 
tained that at first, and before the curse or the deluge, the 
axis of the earth was perpendicular to the equator, and 
that the centre of gravity was in the centre of the earth, 
and thus the seasons were uniform. But this is now gen- 
erally discarded. 

The second is the silver age, under Jupiter. Saturn was 
dethroned, and his 6on Jupiter assumes the government 
of the world. 

" Postqtiam Saturno tenebrosa in Tartara misso, 
Sub Jove inundus crat ; nuhit argentea proles, 
Auro detcrior, fulYO preciosior icrc. 
Jupiter antiqua eontra.xit tempora vcris. 
Tumi primiim subiere donios. l>omus antra fuerunt, 
Kt derisi frutices et vincUc corticc virgae." 

"Hut after Saturn was thrown down to hell, 
Jove ruled ; and then the silver age In-fell, — 
Mure l<u.«r thrin pild, ami yet than brass more pure. 
Jove chanp-d tin- Spring ( which always (Ii<l endurrj 
To Winter, Summer, Autumn; hot and cold. 
Men houses built, late housed in raves profound. 
In plashed* Ix.wrr-, and sheds with osiers l>ound." 



• Uowcrs mode of limbs of trcon interwoven. 



448 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



As to this Jupiter, different opinions prevail. Sandys, 
with others, thinks that Cain was this Jupiter ; that idol- 
atry first began in his family ; that in his time the people 
first fell from the worship of God, and, through fear or 
flattery, worshipped him as their king. Mr. Brook and 
others think that Jupiter dethroning his father Saturn 
and succeeding to the empire of the world, is a perversion 
of the doctrine of the Mediator. Tradition said that Saturn 
or Chronos, who were the same, and sometimes called 
" Old Time," being offended with the sins of men, had 
withdrawn from the superintendence of the earth and re- 
tired to the remotest star, hence called Saturn, — then sup- 
posed to be the most distant, — and that Jupiter had suc- 
ceeded to the government of the world. Certain it is that 
Jupiter, in the heathen mythology, was often represented 
as a mediator. " He was originally," says Mr. Brook, " an 
embodiment of the idea of the true Cod, and was worshipped 
as the Father of gods and men, and the creator of the uni- 
verse." In this place he seems to occupy the place of a 
mediator. In the Gothic mythology he is called Thor, 
" the thnnderer," and is called the first-born of the supreme 
God. The JEdda calls him a middle divinity, or mediator 
between God and man. He is said to have wrestled with 
Death, and to have bruised the head of the serpent, and in 
his final engagement with him to have slain him. 

The brazen and iron ages come together, so rapid is the 
transition from one to the other, — from a warlike spirit to 
every vice. 

"Tertia, post illas, successit, Ahenea proles, 
Saevior ingeniis, et ad horrida promtior arma, 
Nec seclerata tamen. De duro est ultima ferro, 
Protinus erupit venae pejoris in cevum 
Omne nefas : fugere pudor verumque fidesque. 
Vivitur ex rapto. Non hospes a hospite tutus, 
Non socer a genero. Fratrum quoque gratia rara est. 
Victa jacet pietas." 



ox OVIDS metamorphoses. 



449 



" Next unto this succeeds the brazen age, 
Worse nurtured ; prompt to horrid war and rage, 
But yet not wicked. Stubborn iron, the last : 
Then blushless crimes, which all degrees surpast. 
All live by spoil : the host his guest betrays, — 
Sons, fathers-in-law, — 'twixt brethren love decays : 
Foiled piety, trod under foot, expires." 

Mr. Brook well remarks on Ovid's account of the in- 
creasing degeneracy of the brazen and iron ages, that ac- 
cording to the Bible, the rise of the different arts and the 
corruption of morals took place at the same time. Tubal 
Cain, the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron, 
was the son of that Lamech, who, by introducing polyga- 
my, poisoned the stream of life at its fountain bead, and 
laid the foundation of that degeneracy which was consum- 
mated when the sons of God, the descendants of pious 
Seth, intermarried with the daughters of men. or progeny 
of Cain, who like him went out from the presence of God, 
and were erpially gi id less and wicked. The flourishing state 
of the arts not only ministered to the necessities of men, 
but gave rise to wealth, luxury, and pride; while polyg- 
amy gave loose rein to lu>t, and thus avarice, ambition, 
ami lust held joint empire over the world. In conformity 
with the scriptural account is the tradition in the Gothic 
mythology, where it is expressly stated " that women cor- 
rupted the purity of the early ages of perfection." A 
passing remark is due to one passage in the above quota- 
tion. The brazen age is said to be "Savior injeniis, et ad 
horrida promptior bella," that is, more cruel in its tem- 
pers, and more prompt to horrid wars ; and still it is added, 
"nee scfdt.Tiita tanien." J low different this from the spirit 
of the gospel ! How does the next line exhibit the fruits 
of a warlike spirit, — 

" I'rotinus crnipit venm pejoris in u.-vum 
Oniric ncfas ! " 

29 



450 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



THE FABLE OF THE GIANTS. 

Before quoting from the brief account of the war of the 
giants with heaven, we must beg the reader ever to bear 
in mind that these are fables, and do not profess to be nar- 
ratives of real events, though they are drawn from some 
things which have occurred. They are not mere creations 
of the human mind out of nothing, but have some founda- 
tion upon which to rest, just as all parables and allegories 
and figures of speech refer to something which they at- 
tempt to represent. All of Ovid's fables, however fanci- 
ful and far-fetched, have reference to some historical fact 
supposed to have occurred : they are something like rid- 
dles, hard to be interpreted, and various have been the 
explanations given to them. 

The connection between this and those going before, 
plainly proves that its design is to show that men in the 
iron age were not only guilty of all manner of crimes 
against their fellow-men, but proceeded to the most dar- 
ing impiety towards heaven ; were giants in sin, so that 
their sins might well be represented as "making war 
against heaven," — as piling mountain on mountain in 
order to besiege and assault God, and drive him from his 
throne in some miraculous manner. 

This is, no doubt, one of those successive destructions 
and reproductions of the human race of which the hea- 
then mythologies, especially the Oriental, were so full. 

It may be that this fable had reference to the rebel 
angels which were cast out of heaven, and of whom Mil- 
ton has given us so terrific an account in his " Paradise 
Lost." It may have been confounded with the account 
of the battles of the Titans and the gods, of which Ilesiod 
wrote in his great poem, and which some think relates to 
the rebellion at Babel. The attendant circumstances, the 
piling of mountain on mountain, Ossa on Pelion, the cast- 



ox ovid's metamorphoses. 



451 



ing them down by Jupiter, and the burying of the human 
race beneath, and the renovation of it from blood, of course 
are all fables ; and yet there may have been facts from 
which they were drawn. In the history of man there 
have been giants in stature as well as in sin. In the his- 
tory of *he revolutions of the earth, there have been vol- 
canoes which may have thrown up mountain upon moun- 
tain, and have then torn them asunder again. Islands, 
with their mountains, have arisen out of the sea, and 
others have sunk into the deep. The lightning of heaven 
has wrought wonders on the earth ; earthquakes have 
swallowed up whole cities. These have been the facts 
from which the poets have drawn their figures and mate- 
rials with which to descrihe the moral history of man. 
Our Lord himself said, "If ye have faith, ye may remove 
mountains." This we know was entirely figurative. 

Mr. Sandys says, "The earth, according to the fable, 
was so enraged with Jupiter for the slaughter of the 
Titans, that in revenge she produced giants of a vast 
proportion; yet rather so called from their monstrous 
minds, for the stature of men is now as heretofore, as ap- 
pears by the embalmed hodies of the Egyptians and the 
ancient -.i-pulrluv- in .In. lea." Hi- add.-: "As the former 
ages have produced some of prodigious height, so also 
have the latter." then mentions some instances re- 

corded in hi.-torv. none of which he .-ays ever exceeded six 
or seven cubits. ''The tirst giants we read of," he says, 
"were begotten by the sons of (iod of the daughters of 
men; that, is, they were the offspring of the sons of Seth 
and the daughters of Cain. The name signifies 'to fall,' 
meaning their detection from (bid and his holy religion. 
They are called in scripture "men of renown," — that is, 
exceeding in pride and cruelty. Such was the giant Nim- 
rod, after the flood. He was the leader of the builders 
of the tower of Mabel, whose top wa.s to reach unt< 



452 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



heaven. "What was that," he asks, " but piling up moun- 
tain on mountain ? " 

THE DELUGE. 

After the judgment on Lycaon and his family by Jupi- 
ter, by reason of his great wickedness, we have an account 
of the deluge. The gods are assembled to determine 
whether the human race is again to be destroyed, and 
how, whether by fire or water. The latter is chosen, as 
it is to be destroyed by fire at some future day. 

" Occidit una domus, sed non domus una perire 
Digna fuit : qua terra patet, fera regnat Erynnis : 
In facinus jurasse putes. Deut ocyus omnes 
Quas meruere pati, sic stat sententia pcenas." 

The very process described by Moses being set forth by 
Ovid. 

" Jamque mare et tellus nullum discrimen habebant, 
Omnia pontus erant. derant quoque littora ponto. 

Deucalion and Pyrrha alone escape in a vessel on Mount 
Parnassus. 

" Jupiter ut liquidis stagnare paludibus orbem 
Et superesse videt de tot modo millibus unum 
Et superesse videt de tot modo millibus unam 
Nubila disjecit : 

Non illo melior quisquam, nec amantior cequi 
Vir fuit : aut ilia metuentior ulla deorum." 

The address of Deucalion to Pyrrha : 

" soror ! conjux ! sola superstes ! 
Nos duo turba sumus ; possedit coetera pontus." 

" One house that fate which all deserve sustains, 
For through the world the fierce Erinnys reigns ; 



ON ovid's metamorphoses. 



453 



You'd think they had conspired to sin ; but all 
Shall swiftly by deserved vengeance faLL" 

After the waters bad fallen : 

"Now land and sea no different visage bore, 
For all was sea, nor had the sea a shore." 

" None was then better, none more just than he, 
And none more reverenced the gods than she ; 
Both guiltless, pious both, and all bereft." 

Affecting: is the address of Deucalion to Pyrrha : 

" Oh ! listen, oh ! my wife, the poor remains 
Of all thy sex, — which all in one remains ; 
AVc two arc all, — the sea entombs the rest." 

Messrs. Sandys and Brook, my guides in these notes, 
agree with many others, that Ovid transfers his narrative 
and table from a partial deluge in Thessaly, in the time of 
Deucalion when most of Greece was overflowed, to that 
of Noah, which happened more than seven hundred years 
before. Dos, however, is nothing; for a poet. It agrees 
too accurately with the Mosaic account to be otherwise 
interpreted. Many of the following fables are evidently 
located hot ween this partial deluge and that of Noah. 
As to this. Mr. Sandys well remarks: "There is no nation 
so harbarous, not even the salvage (savage) Virginians, 
but have home notion of so great a mine." Mr. I 'rook re- 
marks, that the flood of Ogyges, which was more ancient 
than that of Deucalion, and which submerged not a part 
but the whole of Greece, was doubtless Noah's flood, for 
the word Ogyges means the ancient: it is thus used by 
Hesiod in his '"Thoogony." 

The following comparative view of the Mosaic and 
Ovidian account of the deluge, by Mr. Ilarcourt, is wor- 
thy of a perusal : 



454 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



" We might almost," he says, " imagine that they, 
Ovid's traditions, were copied from this record of Moses. 
Thus Moses says that the earth was filled with violence, 
and that the wickedness of man was great, and every im- 
agination of the thoughts of his heart only evil continu- 
ally. Ovid says that violence reigned as far as the earth 
extended, and that all men seemed to have entered into a 
compact to be wicked. In Genesis, God says, ' The end 
of all flesh is come before me, and I will destroy them 
from the earth.' In Ovid, Jupiter says, ' Let all instantly 
suffer the punishment they have deserved.' Of Noah, 
Moses says, that ' he was a just man, and perfect in his 
generations, and righteous before the Lord.' Of Deuca- 
lion and his wife, Ovid says, that ' they were the best of 
mankind ; innocent in their lives, lovers of justice, and 
fearing the gods.' Moses mentions that it was the pleas- 
ure of God to bring a flood of waters on the earth to de- 
stroy all flesh, in consequence of which, all the fountains 
of the great deep were broken up, and the windows or 
floodgates of heaven were opened. Ovid says that it 
was the pleasure of Jupiter to destroy the whole race of 
mortals by a flood, and for that purpose the clouds poured 
down rain from every quarter of the heavens, and the 
fountains of the great waters were broken up by an earth- 
quake. Moses declares that all the high hills under the 
whole heavens were covered ; that the waters prevailed 
exceedingly upon the earth, and covered the mountains ; 
that they prevailed a hundred and fifty days, and that the 
fowls were destroyed as well as the cattle and beasts. 
Ovid represents the unbounded riot of the ocean covering 
the hills, and the strange waves dashing on the mountain- 
tops, and the birds falling into the water from fatigue, be- 
cause there was nothing left on which they could alight 
to rest their wings ; and though he does not specify the 
exact duration of the flood at its height, yet he supposes 



ox ovid's metamorphoses. 



455 



it to have lasted long, because he makes length of hunger 
from want of food destroy all those whom the water 
spared ; namely, those who, availing themselves of rafts 
or boats, contrived to float above the flood, but being 
taken unprepared for so long a voyage, necessarily died 
of famine. Lastly, the ark grounded on the mountains 
of Ararat. The plural number is used, because, though 
Ararat is but a single mountain in the Armenian range, 
yet it is terminated at either end by a lofty peak. The 
name by which the natives distinguished it was Baris, 
the ship or ark, because the remains of that huge fabric 
were said to be still visible among its crags. In like 
manner Ovid lauds Deucalion on a mountain which rises 
above the clouds in two lofty peaks: he calls it Parnas- 
sus, but his annotator, Raphael, observes that its original 
name was Larnassus, from Lam ax, the ark in which Deu- 
calion was saved; others, however, make Olympus the 
diluvial mountain. Thus I'aiir-anias says, "At Olympia is 
the hole through which this Hood retired, and honey -cakes 
were thrown into it as a eucharistic sacrifice, and there 
Deucalion built the tir.-t arkite temple to Olympian Jupi- 
ter. For the same reason, no doubt, Olympus was con- 
sidered fin- abode of tin- ^ods. and •eternal sunshine 
made to Bettle onjts head.'" 

i»i.-n:rr tion ok tiii: woki.d uy kike. 

Having adduced m> many authorities on the subject of 
the deluge in the former part of this book, I will only 
present sninr few of the many which might be furnished 
in proof of the traditions referred to by Ovid in this 
fable, when he tells us that the councils of the gods, un- 
der the direction of Jupiter, determined to punish the 
wickedness of men by water instead of fire, since its final 
destruction was to be by the latter element. 



456 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



An old writer says, 

" Dies irse dies ilia 
Solvet seecluni in favilla, 
Teste David et Sibylla"— 

which is much used in the Roman church with the change 
of a word — 

" Teste Petro et Sibylla." 

and which Sir Walter Scott has used in his famous 
hymn — 

" That day of wrath ! that dreadful day, 
When heaven and earth shall pass away." 

The prophet Zephaniah had used this same language 
long before any of them, in his first chapter, though not 
applying it to the final conflagration. 

The Sibylline verses, whatever be their origin, had 
spread the belief in, or expectation of, a destruction of the 
world by fire, at some future period, far and wide through 
the ancient world. Plato tells us that the Egyptians held 
it — Cicero, that the Stoics held it. Plutarch speaks of the 
elements of the world as things to be burnt up with it, 
and to end with time. 

These traditions accord with Isaiah, who says that all 
' : the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens 
be rolled together as a scroll ;" also with St. Peter, who 
says that " the heavens and the earth which are now, by 
the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against 
the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." 
Then will 

" Seas roar, earth tremble, and volcanic fire 
The mountains light, as if for Nature's funeral pyre." 

But, it may be asked, where is the fable or allegory in 
the foregoing account of the deluge ? Is not this an his- 



ox ovid's metamorphoses. 



457 



torical tact most universally received ? We answer, there 
is much of table connected with it. The manner of re- 
peopling the earth, by Deucalion and Pyrrha, by casting 
stones behind them ; and Prometheus peopling it by 
making a man of clay and getting fire from the sun, — are 
fables. That these things were not seriously said by the 
poets, or believed by the people, I need not tell the reader. 
There was therefore some hidden meaning in the fables, 
about which there may be, and have been, various con- 
jectures. Plato acknowledges that he could not certainly 
find them out. As a specimen of the explanations given, 
take the following : " The stones which Deucalion and 
Pyrrha cast behind them were the stones of the altar 
which Xoah budded and offered sacrifices upon, when 
God promised his blessing and so multiplied his seed. 

Stones are often mentioned in Scripture as being used 
to build altars and raise memorials to God; and one of 
the blessings promised to those who worshipped God is 
that of children. The words of our Lord also are remark- 
able, supposed by some to have reference to this. " God 
is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." 

It is not our intention to examine into the possible or 
probable meaning and design of an}' other of these fables, 
but oidy to put our readers in the way of understanding 
them in other than a literal sense. 

Thus, the story of Phaeton daringly and impiously 
mounting the chariot of the sun and producing a confla- 
gration, is literally believed by no one, the thing being too 
ridiculous; but then! may bo conflagrations, such as those 
of Sudotn and Gomorrah, produced by the sins of men, 
which contributed M.mewliat to the story, while useful 
moral lessons may be disguised in this extravagant fiction. 

As to all the monstrous, absurd, and wicked transform- 
ations, for scandalous purposes, which enter into many of 
the fables, no one of course for a moment believed either 



458 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



that there was truth in them, or that the author of the 
fables designed that any should think there was. Not 
more did iEsop expect that his fables would be literally 
received ; and yet there were some most important ana 
ancient facts and truths wrapped up in the most extrava- 
gant and fanciful of them. 

We have the example of the poets in the time of Ovid 
for thus interpreting ancient fables. Horace, for instance, 
in his poem " De Arte Poetica," tells us that Orpheus was 
said fabulously to have tamed lions and tigers, because 
he improved the morals and religion of the people in 
drawing them away from slaughter and filthy food ; and 
Amphion was said to have moved rocks by his lyre and 
prayers, because he built the walls of Thebes with stones. 
The authors of the ancient fables wrote on the principle 
set forth by Horace, in the words 

" Ex noto fictum carmen sequor." 

They drew their fictitious poems from well-known and 
historical or philosophical facts. 

The later historians and philosophers were ever inter- 
preting these as best they might. I do not mean that we 
have need to resort now to these fables for instruction 
and improvement, as though we had not the scriptures 
for our guide to truth and help to holiness, but as they 
have in former times done some good to the cause of di- 
vine truth, and aided the fathers in their contests with 
pagans, so we may still cherish them as the depositories of 
the ancient traditions of the heathen world, subject to the 
correction of our unerring tradition which has come down 
to us from God himself. 



ON ovid's metamorphoses. 



CONCLUSION. 

I cannot take leave of Ovid, whose poetry I greatly 
admire, lor whose sufferings I have felt sympathy, and 
whose mythology I think may he used to advantage, 
without calling the attention of my readers to the Pero- 
ration or close of his Metamorphoses, that they may see 
the melancholy deficiency of all pagan piety. Although 
he hegan, according to some, with the words "Dii caeptis 
adsprisate meis," yet how vain-glorious and even impious 
and daring he closes : — 

M Tamque opus exegi, quod nec Jovis ira nec ignes 
Nec potent ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas, 
Astra ferar ; nomenque erit indelebile nostrum." 

In this he was only a copyist of Horace, who concludes his 
work with these words : 

u Exegi monumcntum sere perennias 
Regal i que situ pyramidum altius, 
Quod non imbcr e<lax, non Aquilo impotens 
I * • • — - i t rtiruere, nut innumerabilLs 
Annorurn scries et fuga temporuin. 
Non omnis moriar." 

I low different from the words of Milton to the Great 
Spirit : 

" What in me is dark, 
Illumine ; what is low, raise and support, 
That to the height of this great argument 
I may assert eternal Providence, 
And justify the ways of (Jod to men." 

Of those of Dr. Young : 

" Thou, whom word from solid darkness struck 
That spark, the Sun, strike wisdom from my soul, — 
My soul, which Hies to thee, her trust, her treasure I" 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

ON VIRGIL, AND THE J3NEID, GEORGICS, ETC. 

Virgil flourished in the reign of Augustus Ctesar, the 
great patron of learned men and poets. Like Homer, he 
was much addicted to travel and the study of astrology. 
He frequented the schools of the most eminent professors 
of the Epicurean philosophy, which was then much in 
vogue ; but being dissatisfied with this system, adopted the 
tenets of the Academic school, or that of Socrates and 
Plato. He was denominated " The Plato of poets." Caesar 
being sick of what has been called the imperial evil, — that 
is, the desire of being deified, — Virgil gratifies him to the 
utmost in many of his writings, applying to him the pro- 
phetic sibylline verses, which have been supposed, by 
Bishop Horseley and others, to belong most probably to the 
Saviour of the world. This appropriation of these ancient 
verses had previously been assigned by flattering poets to 
others beside Augustus. Dryden, the translator of Vir- 
gil, prefers him as a moralist to all other poets. " There 
is nothing," he says, " in pagan philosophy, more true and 
more just than Virgil's Ethics. The esteem for him de- 
generated into that form of superstition called the " Vigil- 
ianaa Sortes," by which a passage accidently fallen upon 
in opening his book was said to contain a divine direction 
or prophecy. "With the history and writings of Virgil we 
have nothing to do, except so far as they may contribute 
to the object of this book. Though living so near the 



ON" VIRGIL. 



461 



Christian era, he substantially retains the mythology of 
Homer and llesiod, the great classiliers of the gods. Some 
new deities had been added, and Virgil does his best to ele- 
vate Augustus to an equal share on the throne of Jupiter: 

" Divisum impcrium cum Jove Caesar habet." 

In his fourth pastoral we have those beautiful lines in which 
he applies to Augustus the sibylline verses, supposed by 
so many learned men to have been ancient prophecies 
which had come down from early days, and which be- 
longed to the Saviour of the world. We give Dryden's 
translation in this and all following quotations, instead of 
the original : 

" The last great age, foretold by sacred rhymes, 
Renews it* finished coarse. Saturninn times 
J J .'>I1 round again ; and mighty years begun, 
From their tir*t orb in radiant circles run. 
The base, degenerate iron ort'spring ends; 
A golden progeny from heaven descends." 

In his sixth pastoral he makes old Silenus eing of the 
origin of all things : 

" lie sang the secret seeds of Nature's pains ; 
How MM, and earth, and air, in active Humes, 
Fell through the mighty void, and in their fall. 
Wi-re blindly guthered in this goodly ball." 

lit: then gives the progress of all things from this chaos, 
very much after the manner "f Mo-es, ami proceeds to the 
formation of man : 

'• From thence the birth of man the NOg pursued, 
Anil bow the world was lost and how renewed. 
The reign of Saturn, and tho golden age, 
Prometheus' theft, and Jove's avenging rage." 



462 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Here we have the deluge, and the improved manners of 
the renewed earth under Saturn or Noah, which is the 
second golden age. 

In his Georgics, where he teaches the management of 
fields, orchards, gardens, trees, and cattle, he begins by 
invoking all the minor deities presiding over these several 
departments of nature, — 

" Ye deities, who fields and plains protect, 
Who rule the seasons, and the year direct — 
Come, all ye gods and goddesses that wear 
The rural honors, and increase the year ! " 

Then turning his fulsome verse to Augustus — 

" And chiefly thou, whose undetermined state 
Is yet the business of the gods' debate ; 
Whether, in after times, to be declared 
The patron of the world, and Rome's peculiar guard ; 
Or, o'er the fruits and seasons to preside, 
And the round circuit of the year to guide." 

In the following passages addressed to husbandmen, we 
are reminded of similar ones in the Sacred Scriptures : 

" The Sire of gods and men, with hard decrees, 
Forbids our plenty to be bought with ease ; 
And wills that mortal man, inured to toil, 
Should exercise with pains the grudging soil." 

In the following passage we have a description of God 
much like those in scripture : 

" The Father of the gods his glory shrouds, 
Involved in tempests and a night of clouds." 

VIRGIL ON PKAYEE. 

In all his directions he never fails to enjoin prayers to 
\he gods for a blessing on their fields and labors. 



OX VIRGIL. 



463 



VIRGIL ON TITE LOWER ANIMALS. 

Speaking of the lower animals, he shows his dissent from 
some who think they have souls: 

"Not that I think their breasts with heavenly souls 
Inspired, as man who destiny controls. ' 

virgil's distinction of the gods. 

" Ye home-born deities of mortal birth, 
Thou father Iiomulus, and mother Earth!" 

virgil's fflBD. 

This i9 his master work, second only, in the estimation 
of all ages, to the Iliad of Homer; by some, preferred be- 
before it. It opens with a sad account of the Queen of 
Heaven : 

" Arms and the man I sing, who, forced by Fate 
A tnl haughty Juno's unrelenting hate." 

Well does the poet ask — 

" Can heavenly minds such high resentment show, 
Or exercise their spite in human woe?'' 

A doubt as to the existence and character of the gods is 
thus expressed : 

" If there bo gods in heaven, and god* are just." 

The little respect felt for their deities is expressed in the fol- 
lowing lines, by an unsuccessful competitor in the Games : 

"fiyns blasphemed the gods, devoutly swore, 
Cried out for anger, and his hair ho tore. 1 ' 



464 THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 

Again, in the midst of the great sufferings of the Trojans, 
the poet says, 

" The goddess, great iu mischief, views their pain." 

Again, one is made to exclaim, 

" If gods are gods, and not invoked in vain." 

Of one of them,— Hecate, — it is said, 

"A powerful name in hell and upper air." 

Jupiter, while drawing out the Fates, says of himself, 
"Equal and unconcerned I look on all." 

And yet Dido, disappointed in her love, exclaims, 

" The gods, and Jove himself, behold in vain 
Triumphant treason— yet no thunder flies ! 
Faithless is earth, and faithless are the skies." 

Concerning the characters of the gods who presided over 
the armies of JEneas and Latinns, we are shocked at the 
only atheist who appears in Virgil's poem. Mezentius 
thus speaks, when surrounded by foes and about to be 
slain : 

" My strong right hand and sword, assist my stroke ! 
Those only gods Mezentius will invoke: 
Nor fate I fear, but all the gods defy ; 
Forbear thy threats — my business is, to die." 

His only request was a grave— 

" Refuse it not, but let my body have 
The last retreat of human kind,— a grave." 

I only add on this subject two lines, which relate to two 



OX VIRGIL. 



465 



deities or principles on which, in truth, was the chief re- 
liance of the poor pagans : 

'• But Fate and envious fortune now prepare 
To plunge the Latins in the last despair." 

On the subject of Fate, the theology and philosophy of 
Virgil are exactly that of Homer and others. The chief 
deity was identified with fate. The \nons xEneas is called 
"The awful god elect," 

•• And ripe for heaven. When Fate iEneas calls, 
Then shalt thou bear him up sublime to me." 

Fate and the gods are often joined together — 

" If so the Fates ordain, and Jove commands." 

Again*— 

" Yet where's the doubt to souls secure of Fate ? " 

Chance is sometimes introduced. Thus Dido, the suicide, 
is spoken of : 

M For since she died, not doomed of Heaven's decree 
Or her own crime, but human casualty, 
And rage of lore, that plunged her in despair." 

Still Fate lias a part, and thus does she sanction suicide : 

" My fatal course is finished, and I go 
A glorious name among the ghosts below." 

Again, Jove himself is said to be unable to manage 
Fate : 

"'Tis Fate directs our course, and Fate we must oboy." 
30 



466 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



The sibyl is also thus represented : 

" Then full of Fate returns, and of the god." 

The piety of iEneas, — pious ./Eneas, — is represented as 
" Observant of the right, and religious of his word." 

Again, — 

" Thus fearing guilt for some offence unknown, 
With prayers and tears the Dryads I atone 
With all the sisters of the woods 
And most the God of Arms." 

He is represented on one occasion as 

" Full of religious doubts and awful dread." 

He was careful to carry with him from Troy his house" 
hold gods, more mindful of these, some think, than of his 
wife, Creusa : 

" My household gods, companions of my woes, 
With pious care I rescued from my foes." 

In his last battle this was his prayer : 

" All rosy sun, and thou Ansonia's soil, 
For which I have sustained so long a toil, 
Thou king of heaven, and thou the queen of air, 
Propitious now, and reconciled by prayer." 

" The god of war, 
The living fountain of the running floods, 
The power of ocean, and the ethereal gods," 

are all invoked. 

The pious Latinus, king of Italy, on the same occasion 
invokes 

"Heaven, Earth, and Main, 
And all the powers that all the three contain : 
By hell below I swear, and by that upper God 
Whose thunder signs the peace and seals it by his nod. 



OX VIRGIL. 



467 



Jupiter's titles and authority. 

He is sometimes called " The Founder of Mankind ;" 
then " The Son of Saturn ;" then " All-powerful Jove," 

" Who sways the world below and heaven above, 
Disposes all with absolute command." 

Venus calls him, — "O power immense!" "Eternal en- 
ergy!" 

VIRGIL OX ORIGINAL SIN, OR ENTAILED CORRUPTION, AS SEEN 
IN THE WICKED DESCENDANTS OF BASE LAOMEDON. 

" Can gratitude in Trojan souls have place? 
Laomedon still lives in all hLs race." 

WOMAN. 

" Woman's a various and a changeful thing." 
This is borrowed from Ilesiod. 



GOOD ANGELS. 



" 'Twas dead of night, when, to his slumbering eyes, 
His father's shade descended from the skies — 
And thus he spake : ' The king of heaven employs 
My careful ghost on his commands.' " 



THE SERPENT. 

The serpent, guarding the tomb of Anchises, comes out 
when J'liicus celcliratcs liis death with games: 

" Scarce had lie finished, when with speckled pride 
A Hcrpent from the tomb began to glide: 
His hugy hulk on seven high volumes rolled ; 
Illue was his breadth of hack, but streaked with scaly gold. 



468 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Thus riding on his curls, he seemed to pass 
A rolling wave of fire, and singed the grass. 
More various colors through his body run, 
Than Iris' bow when it imbibes the sun." 



DIVISION OF THE WORLD. 

Virgil makes the same division of the world among the 
three great deities, — -J upiter, Neptune, and Pluto, — that 
Homer does. When ^Eolus raised a storm against the 
fleet of ^Eueas, imperial Neptune thus rebukes the winds : 

" Hence to your lord my royal mandate bear : 
The realms of ocean and the fields of air 
Are mine, not his. By fatal lot to me 
The liquid empire fell, and trident of the sea. 
His power to hollow caverns is confined : 
There let him reign, the jailer of the wind, 
With hoarse commands his breathing subjects call, 
And boast and bluster in his empty hall." 



VIRGIL ON INSPIRATION. 

Inspiration was believed in by some of the heathen. 
" Jove will inspire him, when, and what to say." 



MULTIPLICITY OF NAMES FOR THE SAME GOD. 

The sibyl in the Cnmaean cave 

" Thrice invokes the powers below the ground : 
Night Erebus and Chaos she proclaims, 
And threefold Hecate with her hundred names, 
And three Dianas." 



The whole character of the pagan religion and morality, 



OX VIRGIL. 



469 



both of Gods and worshippers, has been well set forth by 
Milton in two words : 

"Lust hard by hate." 

Lust, revenge, and cruelty make up the parts and wor- 
ship of paganism. 

Amid the ravings of Dido at the flight of ^Eneas, she 
exclaims : 

"And unreversed, 'tis doubly to be dead." 

"When about to cast herself on the funeral pile, she thus 
imprecates curses upon him : 

" Thou Sun, who viewest the world below ! 
Thou Juno, guardian of the nuptial vow ! 
Thou Hecate, hearken from thy dark abodes ! 
Ye furies, fiends, and violated gods ! 
All powers invoked witli Dido's dying breath, 
Attend her curses and revenge her death ! " 

In nothing does the Christian religion more strikingly 
and favorably compare with all the systems of paganism, 
than in regard to revenge or hate. In the one these feel- 
ings are condemned as being not of God ; in the others 
they are cherished as noble traits of humanity. 

The strifes of the goda are the same in Virgil as in 
Homer. " Tanhene animis celcstibus Ira;," may well be 
said of them. 

"E'en .love is thwarted by his haughty wife — 
Still vanquished, yet she still renews the strife." 

" For neither Fate, 
Nor time, nor pity, could remove her hatr," 

is said of the enmity which she bore the Trojan race. 



470 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



THE SIBYL'S CAVE AND THE ABODES OF THE DEAD. 

JEneas determines to visit his father Anchises in Hades 
or hell, in order to learn something of his own future fate. 
He therefore seeks the Oracle and temple of Apollo, that 
he might get the aid of the Sibylline priestess. 

" Deep in a cave, the Sibyl makes abode." 
After some awful scenes, the raving Sibyl appears — 
" When all the god comes rushing on her soul." 

She points to the road, but learns that 

" The gates of hell lie open night and day, 
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way; 
But to return and view the cheerful sky, — 
In this the task and mighty labor lie." 

Having ushered him into the entrance, she begins to tell 
" The mystic wonders of the silent state." 

Just in the gate and in the jaws of hell are to be seen 
revengeful cares, sullen sorrows, pale disease, repining, 
age, want, fear, famine, toils, death, sleep, frauds, force, 
strife. 

There were forms without bodies — empty phantoms. 
They are hastening down to the shore to be ferried over. 
Some are assured by Charon that 

" The ghosts rejected, are the unhappy crew 
Deprived of sepulchres and funerals due. 
A hundred years they wander on the shore — 
At length, their penance done, are wafted o'er." 

Some by stratagem and daring and bribery get over the 
river Styx, contrary to law ; for Charon says, 

" My boat conveys no living bodies o'er." 



OX VIRGIL. 



471 



The first objects that present themselves are little chil- 
dren : 

" Before the gate the cries of babes new born, 
"Whom Fate had from their tender mothers torn, 
Assault his ears." 

Then those who had been unjustly condemned, and who 
were appealing to their judge for a reversal of their sen- 
tence. Then the unhappy suicides, 

"Who prodigally threw their souls away," 

are in a state of Buffering. 

Then come the mournful fields, where unhappy, disap- 
pointed lovers dwell : — and here iEneas sees the shade of 
Dido. Then he passes by the regions of the damned, who 
for great crimes are doomed to intolerable and endless 
pains. The guide thus concludes: 

" Had I an hundred mouths, an bundred tongues, 
And throats of brass in>pired with iron tongues, 
I could not balf their horrid crimes repeat, 
Nor half the punishment their crimes have met"* 

The guide then leads him to the Elysian fields, where 

''Those happy -pirits which, ordained by Fate, 
For future being and new bodies wait." 

There he meets with the ghost of Anchises : 

'"Then thrice around his neck his arms he threw, 
And thrice the flitting shadow slips away." 

* Among the sufferings which the pagan* ascribe to the damned, may he 
mentioned that of Syciphus, a noted robber, who was doomed to roll u huge 
round stone to the top of a hill in the iiifern.il region, which, just as it reaches 
the top, rolls hack again. 

" Up the high hill he heaves a huge round «lono." 

Another is thnt of Ixion bound to the peak of a mountain, with n vulture 
gnawing at its liver hut never consuming it. Thus did they set forth eternal 
punishment. 



472 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



yEneas next beholds crowds of ghosts thronging to 
drink of the waters of Lethe, or Eorgetfulness, and is in- 
formed by his father's ghost that they are those 

" To whom by Fate are other bodies owed." 

Then the poet unfolds their system. One soul, he says, 
animates the sun, and moon, and stars, and waters. From 
this soul, men and beasts obtain life : 

" The ethereal vigor is in all the same." 

Men cannot be reunited with this soul of the world, as 
some of the philosophers held. By various penances, how- 
ever, some are so purified as to be permitted to enter the 
Elysian fields, where they are further purified, so that 
nothing but the pure ether of the soul remains. Then 
they are made to drink of the waters of Lethe, 

" That, unremembering of its former pain, 
The soul may suffer mortal flesh again." 

Here we have the doctrine of the transmigration of souls 
which was so generally held by the ancients. The highest 
hope held out by that system was, that after suffering for 
a long time, and waiting in Elysium till the soul was pu- 
rified and became pure ether, it might be transferred to 
some earthly body again, having forgotten all that was 
past." The wicked, who were in Tartarus, had no such 
hope held out to them. Thus was the doctrine of rewards 
and punishments, and of the unity of Grod, set forth in the 
ancient mysteries. It is generally admitted that Virgil 
adopted this method of representing the doctrines which 

* The Druids taught the doctrine of transmigration to the Germans, en- 
couraging them to fight bravely and die, from the belief that their souls would 
pass into other bodies. Some of the Jews seemed to believe that the soul of 
John the Baptist had passed into the Saviour, and that he was John the Bap- 
tist risen from the dead. 



OX VIRGIL. 



473 



were set fortli in the ancient mysteries of the heathen. 
But tliis seems rather the unity of pantheism than that 
taught in the Bible. And how different these bodies from 
those with which we expect to be clothed at the resur- 
rection ! 

We may well be shocked to find that those who are in 
the first division of Hades, or purgatory, or on the con- 
fines, were those three innocent classes of sufferers, viz : 
little children, dying as soon as born ; those who were un- 
lawfully condemned for any crime; and those whose bodies 
were unburied. It has been pleaded, in behalf of these 
horrible things, that the legislators and founders of the 
mysteries introduced them from the most humane motives, 
viz: to prevent the destruction of children by their pa- 
rents, the unjust condemnation of innocent persons, and 
the secret murder of any who must thereby be deprived 
of funeral rites, seeing that those innocent ones would be 
exposed to so much suffering in the purgatory of the 
pagans. 

CONCLUDING REMARKS. 

As to this doctrine of transmigration, we have but to 
say, that if all the wicked were confined in Tartarus for 
ever; and if those who for a long period of time were doing 
penance in the pagan purgatory, or improving in Elysium 
until all .stains were washed away, and only those were 
allowed to enter new bodies and live over again on earth, 
surely we might expect that a great improvement would 
have taken place in tin; world, and the human race would 
have been ipiite perfected by thi> time. 

We still, however, grant that the mysteries which Virgil 
represents in his .sixth book wen- intended for good, and 
were for a time productive of good. Thus Kuripidcs, in 
one of his plays, >ays, " Happy is the man who, initiated 
in the mysteries of the gods, purities his life and makes 



474 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



his soul expiate in the rites of Bacchus by pious lustra- 
tions on the mountains." This Bacchus was the same 
with Dionusus, the god of the ark. Mr. Harcourt shows 
how the same is set forth in the Indian mythology, where 
the god of the trident and the deluge, who was none 
other than Dionusus, Bacchus, or Noah, is thus addressed : 
" O worthy man ! O Hara, Iiara ! ascend into thy cave ; 
hence send letters ; but into thy cave go secretly." 
Again : " See the door of your cave ; break it ; open and 
conceal thyself therein ! " In which he believes there is 
reference to the ark and deluge, — things prominently re- 
ferred to in the ancient mysteries. 

The early fathers had frequent reference to them. Thus 
Clement compares the mysteries or sacraments of Chris- 
tianity to them. " Ours," he says, " are the venerable 
orgia of the word." " O truly holy mysteries ! being 
initiated, I am made holy." "These are the Bacchanalia 
of my mysteries ; come thou and be initiated ! " 

APPENDIX TO THE CHAPTER ON VIRGIL, IN WHICH HIS REF- 
ERENCE TO THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS IS CONSIDERED. 

Having promised, in a previous chapter, something 
more concerning these celebrated books, we now give 
the views presented by Bishop Horseley in his treatise 
" On the Prophecies of the Messiah dispersed among the 
Heathen," which, though left unfinished at his death, 
showed a most careful study of the subject. 

He believes that these books contained some of those 
ancient traditions and prophecies of a great Deliverer 
who was to come, and which were floating through the 
world during the patriarchal age, not merely in the family 
of Abraham, but in other lines. An extraordinary book, 
under the name of the Oracles of the Cumasan Sibyl, 
was found at an early period of Kome, and held in such 



OX VIRGIL. 



475 



veneration as to be kept in a stone chest in the temple of 
Jupiter, and committed to the care of two persons, who 
were enjoined to keep the contents from the public, under 
heavy penalties. About a century before the birth of 
Christ, the temple in which they were contained was 
burned and they were consumed. The Roman senate 
thought it of so much importance to repair the loss, that 
they sent persons into various countries to collect the 
fragments of the same, which were supposed to be in ex- 
istence, and the most learned men of Rome were employ- 
ed to select from the returns what they judged to be most 
authentic. There was certainly a great resemblance be- 
tween some tilings contained in these books as to the 
great Deliverer, and those in the scriptures as to the 
Messiah. 

Virgil, in his fourth Pastoral addressed to Pollio, is 
supposed to be flattering Augustus as being that great 
Deliverer, by copying from the Cumaean verses, and ap- 
plying them to him : 

" The bmt great age, foretold by sacred rhymes, 
Renews its finished course. Saturnian times 
Roll round again ; and mighty years begun, 
From their first orb in radiant circle-- run. 
The base degenerate Iron offspring ends: 
A golden progeny from heaven descends. 
The jarring nations he in peace shall bind, 
And with paternal virtues rule mankind." 

Julius Ca-sar, through his friends, wished to have it 
believed that lie was the person alluded to in the Sibyl 
line books, as ;i means of obtaining the kingly govern- 
ment of Rome; but Cicero, who had access to these docu- 
ments, and who was opposed to Ca-sar's elevation, denied 
that they were prophecies, alleging that they were not 
frenzied enough in their style to he the work of prophets, 
but bears testimony to their excellence by saying, " Let 



476 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



us, then, adhere to the prudent practice of our ancestors ; 
let us keep the Sibyl in religious privacy. These writings," 
he said, " are indeed rather calculated to extinguish than 
to propagate superstition." Bishop Horseley says, that 
" These prophecies, wherever they might he found, could 
be of no other than a divine original ; the matter and the 
style of them is, in my judgment, an irrefragable argu- 
ment." They were fragments, he says, mutilated, per- 
haps, and otherwise corrupted, but they were fragments 
of the most ancient prophecies of the patriarchal ages. 
He then proceeds to show the probability of such prophe- 
cies having been preserved in other than the Jewish na- 
tion, from the evidences of remaining truth and piety 
among them, as recognized in the Old Testament, until 
the time of Moses, and in some few instances after his 
time, before the universal and entire corruption had taken 
possession of the human race. The corruption of religion 
was gradual ; and even after some idolatry prevailed, the 
true God was acknowledged and worshipped. He in- 
stances the two Abimelechs, in the times of Abraham 
and Isaac ; also Melchizedec, in the time of Abraham ; 
Job and others, in the time of Moses. Bishop Horseley 
institutes a comparison between some in the patriarchal 
age, in other families than the chosen one of Abraham, 
among whom there was incipient idolatry, and the corrupt 
members of the church of Borne, and affirms that the 
Romanists, who pay such adoration to the Virgin Mary 
and other saints, though still worshipping the Trinity, 
may have departed from the true faith and worship as 
much as some in early days before the total apostasy took 
place. During this period, such books as those of the 
Sibyls may have been preserved and handed down 
through different channels just as the Romanists preserve 
and hand down the scriptures, though departing so much 
in their worship from them. This view of the Sibyl's 



OX VIRGIL. 



477 



books is only an extension of the general principle of tins 
book, which supposes that in all the religions of the pa- 
gan world there was and is a remnant of original revela- 
tion. Whether the bishop has carried it too far in his 
application to the Sibylline verses, I leave to the decision 
of the more learned and investigating. At any rate, by 
general consent, the expectation of such a person as Jesus 
Christ was gaining ground throughout the world for a 
century before his appearing, not only among the Jews 
but in other countries. "Wise men from the East were 
ready, at the divine intimation, to follow the star which 
led them to Bethlehem, and lay their tribute at his feet. 
The mouth of Zacharias was opened by the Holy Ghost 
to say, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath 
\ i>ited and redeemed his people," " and hath raised up a 
mighty salvation for us in the house of his servant David." 
"As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets which 
have been since the world began." These words, " by 
his holy prophets since the world began," may be more 
comprehensive than many have supposed ; they may re- 
fer to others whose names are not among either the greater 
or lesser prophets of scripture, may embrace others heside 
Noah of the old world, and Mor-es and other- of the new. 
by whom God kept alive among men some knowledge of 
himself, and some hope of a Redeemer. 



■ 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 



ON HORACE, JUVENAL, AND PERSEUS. 

Horace was born about sixty-four years before the Chris- 
tian era. Some of his expressions seem to savor of Epicu- 
rus. Thus, in one of his satires, he says, " Oarpe diem, 
quam minimum credula postero," a sentiment condemned 
by the Apostle Paul in that passage where he quotes Epicu- 
rus,—" Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Al- 
though he does not adopt and defend the doctrine of the 
inspiration of wine as necessary to good poetry, yet he 
speaks of it so as to gratify wine-bibbers, quoting the sen= 
timent of an ancient poet : 

" Nulla placere diu, nec vivere carmina possunt, 
Quae scribuntur aquae potoribus." 

Homer and Ennius are represented by him as drinking 
much wine : 

11 Laudibua arguitur vini vinosus Homerus. 
Ennius ipse pater, nuuquam, nisi potus ad arma 
Prosiluit dicenda." 

As to his theological sentiments he was certainly no fa- 
vorer of the Jewish religion, although it is very probable 
that he only knew of it by its evil report among the nations, 
or the philosophers who regarded the Jews as a supersti- 
tious and bigoted race ; thus, in satirizing some improbable 
tradition or opinion, he says, " Credat Judseus Apella, 



HORACE, JUVENAL, AND PERSEUS. 479 



non ego." As to the providence of God, lie was of the 
Epicurean belief, that it was only on great occasions that 
this deity interfered : " Xec dens intersit, nisi dignus Yin- 
dice nodus, incident." To flatter Augustus, he says, "Ccelo 
tonantem crodidimus Joveni Regnari : praesens divus hab- 
ebitur Augustus." And again, " Seme in ccelum redeas." 
In liis ode to Augustus, he says, " Divis orte bonis, opti- 
me Romule. Gustos gentis." 

In a general way he advocates piety ; at any rate he 
places it on a footing with poetry : 

"Di me tuenter— Dia pietas raea, 
Et man cordi est." 

Sometimes lie speaks in quite an orthodox strain of the 
one great God. Thus, in Book 3, Gde 4 : 

" Qui mare temperat, 
Ventorum et urbis, regnaque tristia, 
Dioeqne mortalesquc turhas 
Impcrio regit unus aequo." 

And yet at another time (Book 1, Ode o) he falls into 
()\ id's doubtful strain : 

"At O Deorurn quidquid in oobIo regit, 
Terra.-* et liiiinaiimii genu-." 1 

In another place he is at a loss to know which of the gods 
must be invoked in behalf of Rome in her distress: 

"Quern vocct divum popnltU ruenti.i 
Imperii rebus." 

He falls into the same low views of some of the philoso- 
phers a* to the aid-, which Jupiter and the oilier gods fur- 
nish to mortal- in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, holding 
that they only bestowed earthly goods: 



480 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



" Hgec satis est orasse Jovem, qui donat et aufert, 
Det vitani, det opes ; asquum mi animuni isse parabo "— 

than which nothing can be pronder or more contrary to 
the spirit of our religion, which teaches that we are not 
able "to think anything of ourselves as we ought to think." 
We have already quoted the lines of Horace, recognizing 
the existence and sacred character of a class of poets of an 
earlier period than Homer and those of his day, and who 
give an account of the first ages ; but the fact is so impor- 
tant, that we must introduce them again as due to our no- 
tice of Horace : 

" Fuit hasc sapientia quondam, 
Publica privatis secernere, sacra profanis. 
Sic honor et nomen divinis vatibus atque 
Carminibus venit. Post bos insignis Homerus, 
Tyrtensque mares animos in martia bella 
Versibus exacuit." 

The character of a priest, as honored in ancient times, and 
its union with that of a king or patriarch, at the head of 
his tribe, is also thus set forth : 

" Kex olim et vates, duo maxima numina coali." 
" The two best gifts God could on man bestow." 

The doctrine of original sin is also declared by Horace : 

" Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur ; optimus ille est, 
Qui minimis urgetur." 

So, also, the desperate depravity of man : 

" Audax omnia perpeti 
Gens humana ruit per vebitum et nefas." 



HORACE, JUYEXAL, AST) PERSEUS. 4S1 

He seems also to recognize the doctrine and practices of 
astrology as used in his day : 

"Incredibili modo 
Consensit astrara." 

The doctrine of fate, or necessity, is also thus set forth : 

" JSqua lege necessitas 
Sortitur insignes et imos." 

As to patriotism and moral courage, he has some noble 
passages. " Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" has 
been quoted in every age since it came from his pen, as 
an encouragement to self-sacritice in our country's cause. 
Tbe following description of a truly virtuous and brave 
man is worthy of all praise : 

" Jnstuin et tenacern proposito virum, 
Non civinin ardor prava jubentium, 
Nun vultus install tis tyranui 
Mente quatit solida." 

" Nee fulminantis magna manus Jovis. 
Si frartus illabitur orbis 
Impavidum ferient ru'mra." 

At other times his standard of wisdom and virtue is rather 
low. Thus, 

'• Virtus est vitiiim fugere, et sapientia prima 
Mnltitiu caruisse." 



«»N THK LoVK <>K Mo.NKV. 

Some <>f 1 1 i r- satirical -trokes arc very tine. Thus, lashing 
the covetonaneafl of the age, he says, 

" Quierenda petunia primum est 
Virtus post nuinmos," 

31 



482 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



ON PROCRASTINATION. 

Exposing the folly of procrastination, he says, 

" Qui recte vivendi prorogat boram, 
Rusticus expectat, dum defluat amnis, at ille 
Labitur et labetur, in omne volubilis ssvum." 

As to anger, he well says, 

" Ira furor brevis est : animum rege ; qui nisi paret 
Imperat. Hunc frenis; bunc tu cornpesse catena." 

To these, a few other passages of a more theological char- 
acter may be added. In Book 1, Ode 2, he alludes to the 
deluge. Speaking of a great tempest — 

" Terruit gentes, grave ne rediret. 
Sseculurn Pyrrhaa." 

In Book 1, Ode 3, the long lives of the ancients are re- 
ferred to : 

" Semotique prius tarda necessitas 
Leti corripuit gradum." 

In the same ode, he is thought by some to speak of the 
building of Babel : 

" N"il mortalibus arduum est. 
Coelum ipsum petimus stultitia ; neque 
Per nostrum patimur scelus 
Iracunda Jovem ponere fulrnina." 

In Ode 10 he alludes to the happiness of the good in 
Elysium : 

" Tu pias lsetis animas reponis 
Sedibus." 



HORACE, JUVENAL, AND PERSEUS. 



4S3 



In Ode 12 he speaks well of the Supreme Being under the 
title of Jupiter, called Jupiter Optimus Maximus when 
regarded as the Supreme : 

" Qui mare et terras, variisque mundum 
Temperat horis : 

Unde nil majus generatur ipso, . 
Nec viget quidquani simile aut secundum." 

But then he proceeds immediately to say, 

" Proximos ill! tamen occupavit 
Pallas honores" — 

and then gives a list of the gods, in a certain order, Bac- 
chus coming next to Romulus, and closing with Julius 
Caesar and Augustus. Of Julius Caesar, he says, 

" Emicat inter omnes 
Julium sidus, velut inter ignes 
Luna minorcs." 

In Ode 34 he seems to recant the doctrines of Epicurus, 
and to maintain the necessity of Providence, speaking of 
the former opinion as one of " Insanientis sapientiae." 
Others might he added. 

A few remarks on Juvenal and Persius, and some pas- 
sages from their satires, will close this chapter. 

Juvenal was horn about forty-two yean after the Chris- 
tian era, in the reign of Claudius. His satires were writ- 
ten in the reign of Trojan. They are severe, hut just. He 
belonged to the sect of Stoics, hut condemned the hypo- 
critical manners of BOme of them. 

" l-'iillit ctiiin vithnn specie rirtntta et umbra, 
OntOD sit Mate liul/itu, vulture, et vesto scverum." 

That he was opposed to the doctrines of Epicurus, the fol- 
lowing lines from Satire 13 show : 



484 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



" Sunt in Fortunae qui casibus omnia ponunt 
Et nullo credunt mundum rectore moveri ; 
Natura volvente vices et lucis et anni. 
Atque ideo intrepidi qusecunque altaria tangunt. 

In another place he says, 

" Nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia, sed te 
Nos facimus, Fortuna, Deum, coeloque locamus." 

And again, — 

" Permittis ipsis expendere numinibns, quid 
Conveniat nobis, rebusque sit utile nostris, 
Nam pro jucundis, aptissima quasque dabunt Dii 
Carior est illis homo, quam sibi." 

That Juvenal was utterly disgusted at the follies of Egyp- 
tian idolatry is evident from the following passage : 

" Qui nescit — qualia demens 
Egyptus portenta colit : Crocodilon adorat 
Pars hoc. Ilia pavet saturam serpentibus ibin. 
Illic coerulios ; hie piscem fluminis : illic, 
Oppida tota canem venerantur. Nemo Dianam. 
Porrum et csepe nefas violare et pangere morsu. 
O ! sanctas gentes, quibus hsec nascuntur in hortis 
Numina. Lanatis animalibus abstinet omnis 
Mensa. Nefas illic fotum jugulare capillse 
Carnibus humanis vesci licet." 

The corruption of morals was so great in the time of Ju- 
venal, and his satires are so pointed and severe, that it is 
offensive to any pure mind to read them. Scaliger con- 
sidered the satires as unfit to be read. " Se vel jubere, 
vel optare, toto opere abstinere virum probum" — "That 
he either ordered or wished that a good man would abstain 
from the whole work." There are still many allusions to 
mythological traditions, of which we may make some use. 
His Sixth Satire is considered his best composition. It con- 



HORACE, JUVENAL, AND PERSEUS. -485 

• 

tains a tirade against women and marriage. It may be 
that the female sex was then in its most corrupt state. But 
it could not have been worse than that of the males, ac- 
cording to Juvenal's own account. In this satire there is 
also allusion to the different ages spoken of by Ilesiod and 
Ovid. The golden age was under Saturn, son of Ccelus or 
Ccelura, and Terra. Then men were made of the earth and 
trees : " Xullos habuere parentes." They lived in the 
trunks of trees, and in caves, and upon acorns, and associ- 
ated with the lower animals. Still Astraea, the goddess 
of justice, with her companions, — Modesty, or Purity, and 
Truth, — presided over men : 

" Credo padicitiam Saturno rege moratam 
In terris." 

Then comes the sylvan age, under Jupiter, when Sat- 
urn had been dethroned. Much of good yet remained, 
though by degrees corruption prevailed, until Astnea and 
her sisters, Faith and Purity, took their flight. 

" Malta pudicitiae veteris vestigia fossan 
Aut aliqua extiterint, et sub Jove." 

At length the iron age comes, when every vice is intro- 
duced : 

" Omne aliud crimen mox fc-rrea protulit aetas." 

It is also believed that reference is made by him to the 
deluge, and the ark in which Moses kept the sacred me- 
morials and the law. In Satire 14 he alludes contemptu- 
ously to the Jews, and shows how little they were under- 
stood at Home, or by him. He represents them as being 
idlers on account of the Sabbath — adoring only the clouds 
and skies — abhorring swine's flesh as much as human, and 
despising the Roman laws, and oidy observing those of 
Moses. Tim - : 



486 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



" Nil prseter nabus et cceli numen adorant, 
Nee distare putant humana carne suillam 
Eomanas autem soliti contemnire leges 
Judaicum ediscunt, et servant ac metuant jus 
Tradidit arcane- quodcunque volumine Moses." 

The charge he brings against the Jews of worshipping only 
the clouds and the deity of the heavens, is equivalent to 
this, — that they worshipped none of the gods of the hea- 
then, but only Him who dwelt in the clouds and heaven. 
In Satire 6, lines 437-9, he says there would be more con- 
fidence henceforth in the Chaldean astrologers, (a set of 
strolling fortune-tellers like our gipsies,) since the oracles 
had ceased, — " Quoniam Delphis oracula cessant. Et genus 
humanum damnat caligo futnra." In Satire 2, he ascribes 
this corruption of morals at Rome to the disbelief of a 
future state and its punishments, saying that none be- 
lieved them — " jSTec pueri credunt nisiqui nondum ore 
lavantur ; " — not even the boys believed in them, except 
such as were too young to be admitted into the baths by 
paying a piece of brass ; but he adds — " Sed tu vera puta." 
Juvenal also mentions in various places the persecutions 
to which the Christians were exposed. He speaks of the 
" pitched vestments " in which they were burnt, fixed to 
the stake, producing a long furrow as their bodies were 
dragged along the dust of the arena. 



PEKSirjS. 

He was born in the reign of Tiberius. His satires are 
obscure, and difficult to be understood. His opening line 
deserves that some notice should be taken of him : 

" O curas hominum : quantum est in rebus inane." 

What is it but a translation of the words of Solomon, — 



HORACE, JUVENAL, AND PERSEUS. 



487 



" Yanity of vanities, all is vanity." He was a Stoic, and con- 
demned the Epicurean motto — " Let us eat and drink, for 
to-morrow we die." lie agrees with the scriptures in op- 
posing those who thought that hecause the deity did not 
inflict immediate punishment on transgression, their im- 
piety was overlooked or forgiven. Lie addresses, in forcihle 
language, the father of the gods, entreating him to punish 
transgressors by no other means than by making them 
" behold virtue, and pine away with grief for having de- 
serted it." 

"Virtutem videant, intabescantquo relicta." 

Lucan, the friend and associate of Perseus, calls the God 
of the Jews " The uncertain or unknown God." Prob- 
ably Perseus thus regarded him. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



ON THE PEOPEE ESTIMATE OF THE PAGAN MYTHOLOGY AND 
THE SAL V ABILITY OF THE HEATHEN. 

Having now examined the various systems of belief and 
worship among the heathen, I propose to consider an im- 
portant question growing out of such examination, viz: 
What is the hope we may entertain of the salvation of 
those who have lived, or are living, under these systems ? 
Although it is a most important truth that God requires 
us " to be holy as he is holy," and that "without holiness 
no man shall see the Lord," still the Bible declares 
that none in the human form but the immaculate Son of 
God was ever free from error and sin. The human mind 
is so constructed, that a diversity of opinion must exist, 
even on matters of importance. No one can undertake 
to say what degree of error unfits for heaven, or what 
amount of transgression or remaining corruption is un- 
pardonable. This must be left to him who alone judgeth 
righteously. If left to our own decision, we should be dis- 
posed to desire the salvation of all men ; to pass the most 
charitable judgment upon them. But it is our part, by 
the light of scripture, candidly to inquire what degree of 
error is compatible with a state of acceptance with God. 
And since error of opinion and viciousness of life are 
closely connected with each other, and both are specified 
in scripture as proofs of man's unfitness for heaven, we 
must have reference to each in forming our estimate of 



PAGAN* MYTHOLOGY. 



489 



the characters and hopes of men. "We mar confidently 
affirm that a holy life and sound faith belong to each 
other, and that, without faith and holiness, it is impossible 
to please God. 

It is important, therefore, that we understand what this 
faith and holiness are. It may be asked, Have not the 
heathen, generally, a tradition of some First Cause, some 
ancient God, although they have added to him many agents 
and auxiliaries, many other gods, either deified heroes 
or parts of nature ? Have they not offered some worship 
to this great God as well as to his subordinates, — even 
thanksgiving and sacrifices, — after the manner appointed 
by God to our first parents ? Have they not thus ac- 
knowledged their dependence upon the great God as well 
as upon the lesser deities ? Have they not sought to pre- 
pare themselves for a future state by sacrifices and prayers, 
as well as by penances and alms and good works ? It 
may be said, that although they multiplied the gods, and 
greatly perverted the sacrifices and offerings, yet that the 
spirit of religion was in them. It may be alleged, that as 
some of their gods, 6uch as Apollo and Mercury, Her- 
cules and Jupiter Soter, were regarded as mediators and 
saviors. >o we may hope, notwithstanding the imperfection 
of their penitence and faith, some may have become meet 
for the presence of the true God hereafter. To this we 
reply, that God will, no doubt, judge righteously, and we 
may be sure he will exclude none from his presence who 
are meet for it. "We shall be the better able to decide 
this matter by considering some passages of scripture 
which have a bearing on this subject, since God will 
judge us by his word. 

That error has been gradual, both as to time and amount) 
all history, sacred and profane, clearly testifies. Men have 
in all ages fallen little by little. u Nemo fuit umjuam re- 
pente turpissimus ;" " Hie nugaj, sepc in seria dueunt,' 



490 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



are proverbs most true of the rise and progress of relig- 
ious error, as of other things. For many centuries after 
the deluge, and, doubtless, after the dispersion, when the 
fathers of different families were kings and priests, there 
was still much of the knowledge and worship of the true 
God remaining, though becoming mixed with not a little 
error. Error was evidently creeping into the family of 
Terah, the father of Abraham, when God commanded 
them to remove from Chaldea to Canaan. Nevertheless, 
we must believe they were still worshippers of the true 
God, and that there were others of the same character, 
though idolatry was rapidly increasing. God now estab- 
lished his covenant with Abraham, revealing himself 
anew to him. When Abraham went into Egypt, he 
found in King Abimelech one who feared God. Doubt- 
less the true God was then known in Egypt, though idola- 
try may have been progressing. Even in Canaan Abra- 
ham found a Melchisedec, priest of the most high God, 
of so high an order that he paid tithes to him. 

At a later period, when Joseph went into Egypt, al- 
though the worship of the sun was established there, yet, 
from the fact that he married a daughter of the priest of 
the sun, and from the respect shown to Joseph and the 
God of Joseph by Pharaoh and his people, we must sup- 
pose that the adoration of the sun was in an incipient 
state, and was in connection with, and subordinate to, the 
worship of Jehovah as the God of the sun and of the 
hosts of heaven. More than two hundred years after this, 
when Moses, the nursling of Egyptian women who feared 
God, was raised up to lead the children of Israel out of 
Egypt, now tilled with idolatry, the language of Pharaoh 
is such as to show that he admitted the existence and 
power of the God of Moses, though his heart was hard- 
ened against him. 

At this time there dwelt in the land of Midian, Jethro, 



PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 



491 



whose daughter Moses married, and who was a priest of 
the true God. Of course there were worshippers to whom 
he ministered. 

As evidence of the existence of some who worshipped 
the true God at this time in the countries around, we 
may refer to righteous Job, who is supposed to have 
lived in the time of Moses, and in Arabia, perhaps not 
far distant from Mount Sinai. We may also see a proof 
of the estimate in which the God of Israel was held 
even by a wicked and covetous man, — the prophet Ba- 
laam, in the land of Moab, just before the Israelites en- 
tered the promised land. He would fain, for hire, have 
cursed Israel, but was forced to bless him altogether. 
We may even go forward some hundreds of years to the 
time of Daniel the prophet, and for some hundreds of 
miles to the court of Darius the Persian, and find proof 
that there was still some knowledge of the true God in 
other nations besides that of Israel. The interesting his- 
tory of Daniel at Babylon and in Persia during the reigns 
of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, Darius and Cyrus, 
shows some public recognition of Jehovah as the true 
God. Let the decree of Darius suffice: "Then king Da- 
rius wrote unto all people, nations, and languages, that 
dwelt .»n all the earth, Peace be multiplied unto you: I 
make a decree that in every division of my kingdom men 
tremble and fear before the God of Daniel, for he is the 
living God and steadfast for ever, and his kingdom that 
which hhall not be destroyed, and his dominion shall be 
even unto the end. Ho delivereth and rescueth, he work- 
eth signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who hath 
delivered Daniel from the power of the lions." How far 
this decree took effect in restraining idolatry we cannot 
say. It was followed by the aece.isioii of Cyrus to the 
throne of Persia, who was called ''The Lord's anointed," 
and who also acknowledged the God of Daniel. These 



492 THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 

notices of the knowledge of the true God in the nations 
around the descendants of Abraham, and kept to it, pei'- 
haps, by means of intercourse with them, are deeply in- 
teresting, and have some bearing on the question before 
us, giving good grounds of hope for the salvation of some 
in those times and countries. Let us now see how the 
knowledge and worship of Jehovah fared in the promised 
land, from the time of the entrance of the chosen people 
into it until the Babylonish captivity, at which time, and 
not before, they ceased from their relapses into idolatry, 
or the intermingling the worship of Jehovah with the 
worship of the gods of the heathen. From the language 
of God in regard to these, and from his dealings with the 
Israelites on account of their departure from the true faith 
and worship, we may understand God's will and mind 
with respect to the question we are discussing. 

In evidence of God's hatred of all idolatry, he declares 
himself, from Mount Sinai, amid the awful scenes of his 
appearing there, to be a "jealous God," in connection with 
his prohibition of any images or likenesses of things in 
earth, sea, and heavens. 

Instead of a noble, philosophic disregard of trifles, as 
some esteem them, and allowing a social liberality to- 
ward all other nations as to religious observances, a lead- 
ing feature in the Jewish dispensation is the endeavor to 
keep them distinct from all others. Many seemingly 
trivial prohibitions, such as not sowing divers seeds, and 
wearing mixed clothes of woollen and linen, and yoking 
the ox and ass together, were appointed only to make 
them differ from the other nations who used such things 
in their worship. For this, among other reasons, did God 
make them wander for forty years in a strange country, 
among enemies, thus to wean them from idolatry. Such 
is the proneness of man to idolatry, that, even in the 
days of the apostles, the last surviving one of them had 



PAGAN MTTnOLOGY. 



493 



need to say, " Little children, keep yourselves from idols," 
which, I doubt not, was designed to be received in the 
most literal manner. Little children, — that is, poor, weak, 
silly children, — keep yourselves from worshipping idols, to 
which you are continually tempted, either by the heathen 
or by paganized Christians, is the true 6ense of the pas- 
sage, though it may be applied to other things. Remem- 
bering the adoration of the hosts of heaven, and well 
knowing that the same was practised in Canaan, God 
warns the Israelites against any such worship, however 
innocent some might deem it, especially in connection 
with and in subordination to the higher worship of Jeho- 
vah. In the twenty-third chapter of Exodus, God says to 
them, '• In all things that I have said unto you, be circum- 
spect, ami make no mention of the name of other gods, 
neither let it be heard out of thy mouth." In the twenty- 
Beventh chapter of the book of Deuteronomy it is written, 
"Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten 
image, an abomination unto the Lord, the work of the 
hands of the craftsmen, and putteth it in a secret place ; 
and all the people shall say, Amen." Death was the 
penalty.* 

* What we now affirm, says an eminent writer, rests on no doubtful author- 
ity. It is a deep moral truth, stamped with the signet of heaven, and continued 
by the whole course of divine Providence for one thousand live hundred years. 
When the Most High would preserve a national witness to himself in the midst 
of the idolutrous heathen, what course did Infinite Wisdom pursue? Did he 
leave the chosen seed exposed to daily and hourly contact with those systems 
of idolatry? No; he placed a double wall of separation between them. He 
phired tliem in a separate land, from which he commanded every truce of those 
accursed idols to be done away, lie forbade the very mention of their names, 
lie placed between them the barrier of a national antipathy bo stern, the mem- 
ory of a judgment so terrible, us to be the stumbling-block of our sentimental 
philosophers, who cannot conceive that " the wrathful Jehovah of the Jews," 
as (Joethe profanely styles him, can be the «umc with "the Father of mercies" 
and "thetiod of all gTace" whom the New Testament reveals. And yet, in 
spite of these prohibitions, and a system of laws made to converge with divino 
wisdom on tins one great object, ivlml doe* the Jewish hi-torv reveal to us but 
• series of lapses into idolatry, followed each in its turn by some new and sc- 



494: 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Just before his death, Moses, in his noble song setting 
forth the perfection of God, represents him as having no 
fellowship or partnership with other gods, in bringing 
the children of Israel out of Egypt : " The Lord alone 
did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. 
I, even I, am He ; there is no strange god with me." Thus 
did God protest against any connivance at, and apology 
for, the adulteration of his worship. Moreover, he ex- 
pressly commanded the destruction or banishment of all 
the Canaanites through fear of such adulteration. 

From the entrance of Joshua into Canaan, we find noth- 
ing but warnings against idolatry, and not a hint of any 
connivance or winking at it, as though these gods might 
be worshipped in connection with Jehovah. After com- 
manding them to put away all the gods of Chaldea and 
Egypt, from whence their fathers had come, Joshua says, 
(in allusion to the division of the gods into celestial and 
terrestrial,) " For the Lord your God, he is God in heaven 
above, and in the earth beneath." During the lifetime of 
Joshua, and while the elders lived who remembered him, • 
the Israelites served the Lord, driving out the Canaanites as 
they were commanded. After this they began to take the 
daughters of the Canaanites that were left in the land for 
their wives, and gave their daughters to the Canaanitish 
men for wives, and served their gods. From this to the 
time of Solomon the history of Israel is a history of its 
partial and temporary relapses into idolatry, and of God's 
judgments upon them for the same. How often do we 
read that the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel on 
account of their idolatries, and that he sold them into cap- 
tivity to the nations around for the same ! Other crimes 

vere infliction of divine judgment? " Protestants ought carefully to remember 
this when they would connive at or imitate any of those customs among Ro- 
manists, by which undue veneration for saints and relics has been introduced 
among them. 



PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 



495 



are scarcely mentioned by comparison with these. From 
time to time God raised up deliverers for them, and they 
returned to the country and his worship. 

During the reigns of Saul and David, and until the close 
of Solomon's, the people of Israel seem to have been true 
to the Lord their God, and their kingdom reached its 
highest perfection and prosperity. We then come to a 
dark, melancholy, and mysterious passage in the history 
of man, viz., Solomon's defection. The sad account of it 
is faithfully stated. 

That Solomon could have been in a state of salvation 
while his heart was cleaving in love to so many strange 
wives, forbidden to him by God, and while it was turned 
away from the Lord by other gods, while establishing the 
abominations of idolatry in the very sight of the temple, 
is not for a moment to he thought of. If it were so, no 
bounds could be set to the mercy of God ; then all idola- 
ters must be saved. Only on the repentance and reforma- 
tion of Solomon can such a hope be founded. As might 
be expected, Rehoboam his son followed in his footsteps, 
and the kingdom was rent in twain. 

A succession of kings doing good or evil in the sight 
of the Lord now followed, in both parts of the kingdom. 
They found favor it) the sight of the Lord, or the Lord was 
angry with them and punished them, just in proportion 
as they were zealous in banishing or promoting idolatry. 
Partial praise is sometimes bestowed, but the same is 
ever modified by the declaration that his heart was not 
perfect or right before the Lord, because he did not pull 
down or destroy every vestige of idolatry. So far was 
God from the latitndinarian charity which would embrace 
all the religions of earth as acceptable to him. 

But the measure of .ludah's iniquity was full. Forty 
years' bondage to the Philistines, besides many smaller 
periods of subjection to other nations, and numerous other 



496 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



judgments, were insufficient to cure the people of their 
obstinate and strong propensity to idolatry. A seventy 
years' captivity in Babylon was awaiting him. In the 
reign of Jehoachim, Nebuchadnezzar came with a large 
army and carried them away into a strange land, where 
by the waters of Babylon they and their children sat down, 
and wept at the remembrance of Zion. 

And now, after this history of God's judgments upon his 
chosen people for conniving at and partaking of the idol- 
atries of the heathen without entirely renouncing Jeho- 
vah as the God of Israel, will any one maintain, with the 
philosophers and poets and rulers of Greece, Rome, and 
other places, that the worship of the gods was worthy of 
encouragement ; that the essential elements of all religious 
systems were the same, so that Jehovah will accept as 
offered to himself all the homage paid to the heathen dei- 
ties ? Might we not hold and maintain, with some, that 
to yield to the passions and appetites that belong to our 
fallen nature, and grant them unrestrained indulgence so 
as to riot in lust, intemperance, revenge, and other vices, 
is worshipping the god of nature, who made us with these 
several propensities ? Some have so held and acted. 
But listen to the language of God as to all idolatries : 
" Be astonished, ye nations, at this, and be ye horribly 
afraid, and be ye very desolate, saith the Lord ; for my 
people have committed two evils : they have forsaken me, 
the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, 
broken cisterns, which can hold no water." Can any 
thing be more expressive of the utter unprofitableness and 
sinfulness of all pagan idolatry ? God cannot at one and 
the same time thus denounce it, and yet accept and re- 
ward it. 

Is there then no salvation to any of the human race, 
except to those among Jews and Christians, who, through 
the scriptures, have the knowledge of the true God and of 



PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 



497 



his Son Jesus Christ ? "We have already spoken of those 
scattered abroad through the earth after the deluge, and 
before the time of Moses, who retained the knowledge and 
worship of God, and of those who, after his time, may in 
their dispersion have retained a sufficiency of the truth 
for salvation.* But is there no hope for others who, in 
the progress of time, have become more and more in- 
volved in idolatry ? To this it is answered, that in all ages 
and countries, among the most savage and the most civil- 
ized, some knowledge of the First Cause, the Great Spirit, 
the Creator of all things, has existed ; and some knowledge 
of the tall and corruption of man, the need of atonement 
by sacrifice, the deluge, a future state, and of the neces- 
sity of some divine assistance. All these have been held, 
though a fearful mixture of error has been connected with 
their belief. The scriptures and reason unite in declaring 
that truth and not error is the divine instrument of im- 
proving and sanctifying the souls of men. Our Lord's last 
prayer was, "Sanctify them through thy truth : thy word 
is truth." 

It were a reproach to our Maker to suppose that lie 
should have so constructed his chief work on earth, as that 
falsehood should be the means of its purification and ex- 
altation, instead of, or as well as, truth, ami that the wor- 
ship of thonc who are no-gods should he as acceptable as the 

* In proof of the greater comprehensiveness of the Jewish church than some 
hare ascribed to it, anil the greater probability that there were devout persons 
in the nations around, we quote the following passage from Hardwic, vol. lit., 
p. 177. 

" These, for instance, like the Kenites, or the Rechabites, retaining the ances- 
tral fuith in one living God, without conforming to the ntunl law of Moses, lived 
for centuries on terms of amity with Israel, and were sheltered near the sanc- 
tuarv of (tod. The psalmist and the prophet are both heurd exulting in the 
thought that Zion was the home ami mother city not of Israel only, but of the 
Gentiles also. At the dedication of the temple Solomon did nut forget the 
strangers (Mining nut of fir countries to worship in Jerusalem. They also wcro 
embraced within the circle of his prayer—' that all the people of the earth may 
know thy name, to fear thee, as do thy people, Israel.' " 



498 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



worship of himself, the true God. It is only in proportion 
as we know and serve the true God, that we are accepted. 

In falsehood there is no virtue to purify ; but in the hem 
of the garment of truth there is virtue, by the power of 
Him who is truth itself. 

All the prayers and sacrifices in the world to all the in- 
numerable objects in nature, and deified heroes, are utterly 
unavailing. They cannot hear or answer our prayers. 
Prayers are only acceptable so far as they are offered up 
to the Great Spirit. We would liken prayers offered up 
to the no-gods of the heathen, to the prayers and homage 
paid to the Virgin Mary and the saints of the Romish 
calendar. E~o grace comes from God in answer to such 
prayers ; they are an abomination to him ; and yet pious 
Romanists are saved through the truth which they be- 
lieve, and the prayers they offer up to the Holy Trinity. 
So among Protestants, we often find the most idle and 
silly methods adopted for promoting conversion. Now, 
though true conversion does often take place in connection 
with these, yet it is not to be ascribed to these acts, but 
to God's word, and the Holy Spirit blessing it, notwith- 
standing the follies and infirmities of men. It is impos- 
sible for us to determine what effect the Spirit of God may 
have produced on the hearts of some pagans by the in- 
strumentality of remaining traditions in which are to be 
found some correct views of himself, yet we must not 
suppose that he who is called the Spirit of Truth would 
make use of the instrumentality of him who is styled the 
father of lies, to do his good work in the hearts of men. 
Some of these things may, from their resemblance to orig- 
inal truth, bear testimony to it, but only as the shadow 
testifies to the substance, though it be not the substance 
itself. It has been justly remarked, that "Error seldom 
walks abroad in her own raiment. She always borrows 
something of truth to make her more agreeable." 



PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 



499 



"We may thus see how God could save those heathen 
who are without law, either the law of Christ or of Moses, 
by means of the remaining light handed down by tradi- 
tion, which becomes a law written in the hearts of men 
by the Spirit of God. Thus do we believe that there have 
been devout men in every age — such as Thales, Pythag- 
oras, Socrates, Plato, Aristutle, Plutarch, Cicero, Confu- 
sius, Zoroaster ; also, some of the Magi and Druids, who, 
by the Spirit of God through the instrumentality of such 
truths as they held, have been sanctihed so as to be made 
meet for the happiness purchased for the holy by means 
of him who tasted death for all men. These men did 
indeed hold some things and do some things which the 
scriptures condemn, and did encourage, if not for them- 
selves, yet for others, some abominable idolatries. They 
were, however, not sanctified and saved by these things, 
but in spite of them. Through the mercy of God and by 
the power of his Spirit they were made humble and de- 
vout, by the instrumentality of that truth which they held. 
Although it is most true that there is no other name given 
among men except that of Jesus Christ, whereby we can 
be saved, and that no blessing conies down from heaven 
to men bat through this channel, yet it is not necessary 
to salvation that the Saviour, in all his power and fulness, 
should be known in order to salvation; else, where is the 
hope; of the patriarchs and the .Jews, who only saw him 
dimly through the types and prophecies; or, for children 
dying in infancy ? 

But now a practical question arises, which has ever 
been a sourer of painful thought to many: What is the 
probability that the heathen, in an J Considerable numbers, 
cither of ancient or modern days, philosophers or people, 
shall thus be saved ? The scripture is the oidy book to 
which we can resort for an answer to this question, but 
this docs not give us such a one as many might ask or 



500 THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 

wish. We have seen what the Old Testament says, as to 
the heathen in the days of the prophets of Israel, from 
Moses to Christ, and how dreadful was the moral condition 
of the world under the influence of paganism, and how 
awful the denunciations of Jehovah against it. Let us see 
what the New Testament says of the philosophers as well 
as people of the Christian era. St. Paul, in his first chapter 
of the Epistle to the Romans, has the philosophers of 
Greece and Rome evidently in his mind. He speaks of 
them as " holding the truth in unrighteousness," by which 
it is supposed that he not only charges them with un- 
righteousness, but as concealing such truth as they had 
from others, as that which was too high for them ; and 
such, we know, was the practice of the philosophers. 
God had showed to them his eternal power and god- 
head, not only by the remainder of original revelation, 
but by blessing their inquiries into his invisible things, 
from the foundation of the world, which were clearly 
seen and understood by the things that are made : but 
they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, and 
were without excuse ; for when they knew God, they glo- 
rified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became 
" vain in their imaginations, and their foolish hearts were 
darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they be- 
came fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible 
God into an image like unto corruptible men, and to birds, 
and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." Such was 
the worship that they encouraged and even practised. 
Wherefore God in judgment gave them over to a repro- 
bate mind, to all uncleanness, and to every abomination. 
This was the general character of philosophers and people. 
The very mysteries which were designed, at first, to pre- 
serve the knowledge of original truth, and the practice of 
original holiness, had become so corrupt that the public 
authorities put them down as nuisances. If there were 



PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 501 

any devout men among them, they were only exceptions 
to the general rule. 

When, therefore, we consider the testimony of the scrip- 
tures, from first to last, and that of universal history as to 
the religions opinions and morals and worship of the 
heathen, where is our hope for any considerable number 
of them from a God of holiness '. and has not that testi- 
mony continued the same all the world over to the present 
time \ From the days of Moses to those of St. Paul, the 
constant language of God has been, " Be ye holy, for I am 
holy," showing the necessity of inculcating holiness on 
men, from the fact that God is holy and men unholy. 
Many doubtless would say, "Surely, if there be one attri- 
bute which all men would unite in ascribing to the deity, 
it must be holiness ;" and yet, if we look through the whole 
heathen mythology, we find it to be the one most neglect- 
ed. Even in the time of Moses it was necessary to begin, 
as it were, a great way off, in order to raise the minds of 
men to this height. The ritual of Moses was filled with 
ablutions, that the mind might be led on by degrees to just 
views of the purity of God. We may realize the differ- 
ence between Jehovah and the gods of the heathen, by 
putting some of the words of Jehovah into their mouths. 
What should we think of the lewd and adulterous Jupiter, 
of Homer and Virgil, thus addressing the children of men 
from Mount Ida, or Olympna — "lie ye holy, as I am holy!" 
or of Venus, exhorting to chaste conversation and virgin 
purity; or of Bacchus, calling on young men to he sober- 
minded, and not to look on the wine when it is red in the 
cup; or of a prie.-t of Moloch, saying, 41 Blessed are the 
peacemakers;" or of Mercury, saying, "Steal no more, but 
rather labor with your own hands;" or of the Furies, coun- 
selling to gentleness, meekness, and love ? 

Which of the fruits of the Spirit grows out of the ex- 
ample of the heathen gods, or from the genius of their rc- 



502 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



ligion ? If it be true of every priesthood of the earth, 
" Like priest like people," how much more " Like gods 
like worshippers !" 

I conclude by applying this subject to an excuse some- 
times made for indifference to one of the most interesting 
and important objects now proposed to the zeal and lib- 
erality of Christians. The last command of our Lord to his 
apostles was, " Go ye into all the world, and preach the 
gospel to every creature." This could not be done with- 
out the greatest perils and sacrifices, oftentimes martyr- 
dom itself. If, as some maintain, a God of justice must 
and does give to every human being precisely the same 
opportunity and help for salvation, then why all this 
waste of life and property on the heathen ? Let him who 
believes in the holiness of God only inquire what the 
heathen ever have been and still are in their tempers and 
lives, and then ask whether the religion of Christ ought 
not, at any cost and labor, to be given to these poor de- 
graded, benighted beings, who are, comparatively speak- 
ing at least, " without God and without hope in the 
world." 

Although the following passage from Professor Hardwic 
is most discouraging as to the philosophers and people 
living after paganism became established, it does not mil- 
itate against the hopeful view we have presented of the 
case of those under the earlier and more partial corrup- 
tions of religion. He is a cautious and therefore a safe 
writer, and seems to consider the sacred books of some of 
the pagan nations as not yet sufficiently examined. He 
says, " If it be found hereafter, on a strict examination of 
their sacred books and other ancient documents, that 
nearly all the heathen systems were defective in those 
very points which form the leading characteristics of re- 
pealed religion ; if the general tendency of pagan thought 
was, in philosophers, to pantheism, or the worship of na T 



PAGAN* MYTHOLOGY. 



503 



tare as a whole, and in the many to polytheism, or the 
deification of particular energies of nature ; if sin was 
then regarded as eternal and necessary, or in other 
cases as unreal, notwithstanding those frequent reclama- 
tions of the moral consciousness that drove men to devise 
new rites of worship, and to rear new altars in honor of 
the ' unknown ' divinity ; if, being thus ' without God in 
the world,' the heathen were also ' without hope,' the vic- 
tims, in their moments of distracting douhts, of ahject 
terror and of withering desperation, we may thence de- 
rive not only a fresh stock of motives for disseminating 
truths that we possess, but special reasons for abstaining 
from all heathenish speculations, and for listening with 
more docile spirits to the Oracles of God." 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 



ON THE QUESTION WHETHER THE SAVAGE OK CIVILIZED STATE 
WAS THE ORIGINAL AND NATURAL STATE OF MAN. 

In our first chapter we expressed the conviction that 
man, as coming from his Maker's hands, was highly en- 
dowed; that according to the testimony of scripture and all 
tradition, he was not only good, but very good, perfect in 
his kind, made after the image of God, though that image 
was faint and imperfect. Infidelity has sought to dispar- 
age the workmanship of God, so far as man is concerned, 
and to represent our first parents as only full-grown in- 
fants, and that all the savages of earth ever have been, 
and still are, in a state nearest to the natural and original 
one ; whereas, all the civilized nations have become so by 
their own power of improvement on the condition in which 
God placed the first of the human race. If such be the 
case, then was man at first, by comparison with the other 
animals, the inferior, not the superior, and rather a reproach 
than an honor to his Maker, for all other animals almost at 
once attain to the perfection of their natures by the power 
of instinct and the rapid development of their powers ; 
whereas, man, by slow degrees and after many generations, 
attains to his highest state. If the savage state be the most 
natural, then we give countenance to the theory of those 
who would degrade the race of man by representing him 
as closely allied to the monkey or orang-outang, or being 
only a higher development of that animal. When we 



THE ORIGINAL STATE OF WAN. 



605 



think oi the inhabitants of Tan Dieman's Land, ot Terra 
del Fnego, the Esquimaux, the Hottentots, tlie Bushmen 
near the Cape ot' Good Hope, — of their disparaging ap- 
pearance, of their savage, ferocious, and unnatural charac- 
ters, — we may well shrink from the idea and belief that 
this was the original state of man, or one necessarily and 
rapidly resulting from it. And yet Mr. Burnet — after- 
wards Lord Monboddo, who says he "writes for men of 
liberal thoughts and more than common learning" — that is, 
for infidels — tells us "The orang-outangs arc proved to be 
of our species by marks of humanity that are incontesta- 
ble" Beattie, in his "Theory of Language," and Dr. Samuel 
Stanhope Smith, of Princeton, in his work on the " Color 
of the Human Pace," have exposed in a masterly manner 
this work of Monboddo, and also the opinions of Ferguson 
and Robertson, which arc not much better. Perhaps Mon- 
boddo's theory deserves no better notice than that of Dr. 
Johnson. "Of standing facts," he says, "there ought to 
be no controversy ; if there are men with tails, catch an 
,,,,■,/,,/,/■ bo that we may Bee him." His lordship 
ha- ;'iiik; far beyond ancient infidels in this theory. Horace 
does indeed speak of men at first as " mutum ct turpe pe- 
dis," mingling with other animals and feeding like them, 
but he docs not class them with such in the order of crea- 
tion. I)iod<>ru.-> Siculus abo, in his history, says, "That 
men lived at first, dispersed like wild beasts in caves and 

w 1-, and subsisted upon the natural productions of the 

earth ; that they had no u.-e of speech, and uttered inartic- 
ulate eric-, -but having herded together for fear of wild 

beasts, they invented and imposed names upon all things." 
The Epicureans held the same doctrine, as we may sec 
in Lucretius, — one of their free-thinking followers, — who 
represents the first inhabitants as living without laws or 
divi.-ions of goods, each one providing for himself by 
plunder. 



\ 



506 THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 

" Sibi quis que valere et vivere dootns," 

nature and utility forcing them to utter various sounds and 
give names to things. Even Cicero represents the first men 
as living with the wild beasts in the forests, but not as Moses, 
who speaks of the lower animals as subject to man. Very 
different is the account which Ovid gives of the first of 
the human race, of their celestial origin and supreme au- 
thority. Qnintilian also rises high above Cicero and others, 
and represents man as having moral sentiments by nature, 
and speech from the beginning, as " the choice gifts of God." 
Homer also represents man as a being distinguished by 
his power of articulate speech, calling him Mserops, which 
means articulate speaking. Dr. Johnson says, " Speech, 
if invented at all, must have been invented by children 
who were incapable of invention, or by men who were 
incapable of speech." Dr. Seattle well remarks, that if 
they lived so long without speech, as some maintain, they 
would hardly have thought of inventing words, seeing there 
were none used by all the dumb animals around them ; ad- 
ding, " Therefore, reason as well as history intimates that 
mankind in all ages have been speaking animals, the 
young having acquired this art by imitating those who 
were older ; and we may warrantably suppose that our first 
parents must have received it by immediate inspiration." 
And what is true of speech is true of everything else which 
was necessary to man's piety, comfort, and improvement, 
although all things may not have been bestowed in high- 
est perfection and fullest abundance at once. As man 
could not make himself at first, neither could he instruct 
himself in speech and knowledge. And yet there are 
those who seem doubtful as to this. "The important 
point (says one of the Humboldts) has not yet been re- 
solved, whether the savage state which, in America, has 
been found in different gradations, is to be looked upon as 



THE ORIGINAL STATE OF MAX. 



507 



the dawning of society about to rise, or whether it is not 
rather the fading remains of one sinking among storms, — 
overthrown and shattered by overwhelming catastrophes. 
To me the latter seems nearer the truth than the former." 
"The famous historian, Niebuhr, (according to Archbishop 
Whately,) is said to have recorded his full conviction that 
all savages are the degenerate remnants of more civilized 
races, which had been overpowered by enemies and driven 
to take refuge in the woods, there to wander, seeking a 
precarious subsistence, till they had forgotten most of the 
arts of settled life, and sunk into a wild state." Dr. Samuel 
Stanhope Smith, of Princeton College, in his able treatise 
on the diversities of color in the human race, speaks more 
boldly, saying that the savage state could not have been 
that of the earliest generations; that such a state is contrary 
to all reason and history ; that not only did the savago 
state degenerate from the most civilized, but that life 
itself could not have been preserved if the first generation 
had been wholly untaught.* 

The opponents of this infidel doctrine, viz., that the sav- 
age state is the original and natural state of man, appeal 
to nil history, and affirm that it can afford no instance of 
any tribe or nation which was once in a savage state, that 
has recovered from it and risen to a civilized one without 
aid from the civilized who have intermingled with them. 
They appeal to the present condition of the American 
tribes, who have continued the same that they were in tho 
days of Columbus, except in those low instances where 
they have been influenced by Christian missionaries ami 
civilized neighbors. They also refer to the whole conti- 
nent of Africa, tilled with tribes of savages for a long scries 
of age-, not one of which has made any advance to civil- 

• I harp taken these quotation* from the admirahlo lecture of Archbishop 
Whately, prepared fur the Young Men's Association in London, in the Tear 



508 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



ization except as they have come in contact with Euro- 
peans. These tribes are compared with their descendants 
in America, who, though in a state of slavery, have be- 
come, by intercourse with the civilized, far superior to 
those in Africa. What are all the accounts of the most 
ancient historians concerning the travels and conquests of 
Hercules, Cadmus, Prometheus, Bacchus, Dionusus, and 
others, but of heroes and colonies going into the various 
countries settled by the dispersed from Babel, teaching 
them letters and the arts, which they had forgotten in the 
forests to which they had migrated ? The savage state of 
man is that of the hunter in the wild woods. Agriculture 
and horticulture are the evidences of advancing civiliza- 
tion. Our first parents were placed in a rich garden, to 
dress it and keep it. Their children were not hunters. 
Cain was a tiller of the ground, and Abel a keeper of 
sheep. The second father of the human race was an hus- 
bandman. The ferocious Nimrod was a mighty hunter 
before the Lord ; and when the rebellions followers of Nim- 
rod were scattered over the earth, they became hunters 
and savages in many of the countries thereof, especiallj* in 
Europe and the northern parts of Asia. Egypt, Babylo- 
nia, and Asia Minor continued to be the seats of civiliza- 
tion, and from thence colonies went forth and brought back 
the savage tribes to primitive arts, letters, and refinement. 
No traces of savage life can be found before the deluge, 
and none after it until the dispersion. Arts and knowledge 
never ceased along the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Nile, and 
the parts adjacent. Here was the leaven preserved which 
was to leaven all Europe and Asia in after times. To these 
countries for centuries did the lovers of learning go in 
search of wisdom. From these countries did the skilful 
architects go forth throughout all lands, building temples 
and monuments to be the wonder of after times, — even of 
this day. The superior refinement and architectural skill of 



THE ORIGINAL STATE OF MAN. 



509 



the Mexicans and Peruvians are believed to have come from 
the same source. The resemblance not only of their relig- 
ious opinions, but of their buildings and arts, points to Eu- 
rope and Asia as the source from whence they came, 
while those emigrants which settled in Xorth America, pre- 
ferring the hunter's life, soon degenerated into wild sav- 
ages, and continue so to this day. The confusion of lan- 
guages which took place at Babel, and which has been 
increasing ever since, doubtless contributed much to the 
degeneracy of man towards the savage state. Great must 
have been the crime and corruption which brought such 
heavy judgments upon the human race. Let us hope that 
the work begun in the day of Pentecost, when the gift of 
tongues was granted to so many preachers, and so many 
heard the words of the Lord declared in their various 
tongues, and which has been carried on by missionaries 
learned in the languages, and especially in the translation 
of the Bible into numerous dialects, may go forward until 
the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth. And 
since the labors of the learned are continually finding out 
connections between the multitudinous languages now 
spoken and written, tracing them all to three or four orig- 
inals, who shall say but that the number of languages may 
be continually decreasing until some few shall swallow up 
the rest, ami the nations be the more easily persuaded to 
cast their [dole to the molefl and bats, and to worship with 
one heart and mind, if not with one tongue, as at lirst, the 

trne and great " 1 Am '. " 

That the arts flourished among the antediluvians wc 
know from the sacred narrative. Cain, the first-born son, 
instead of living in the woods among inferior animals, 
tilled the ground and bnilt a city. In a few centuries and 
generation, we read of the harp ami the organ, and of ar- 
tificers in brass and iron ; and before the seventeenth cen- 
tury, according to common computation, such was the per- 



510 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



fection of ship building, — as probably of other edifices, — 
that Noah constructed one of the most stupendous and per- 
fect of human works — the sacred ark, supposed to have 
borne in its bosom one hundred thousand tons. Not only 
Noah, but his sons must have carried with them into the 
ark, and from it into the new world, the knowledge of the 
arts and sciences, and distributed the same among their 
descendants. And if Archbishop Usher and those agree- 
ing with him be correct, and the tower of Babel was built 
within a hundred years after the deluge, we have in that an 
evidence of the continued knowledge and skill in architec- 
ture of the highest order, for it must have been one of the 
mightiest edifices that ever rested on this earth, or lifted 
its head towards the heavens. Nor was the art ever for- 
gotten. It soon began to follow the dispersed families 
through the earth, and helped to recover them from the 
savage state into which they sunk amid the forests of Eu- 
rope and Africa. If Egypt_did, even for a short time and 
in a measure, decline from man's natural state,— that of 
civilization, — it must soon have recovered it by means of 
colonies from Babylonia, as her mighty pyramids and tem- 
ples, arts and sciences, prove. Truly has it been said of 
even the present remains of Egyptian greatness — 

" quam te die-am bonam, 
Antehac fuisse, tales cum sint reliquiae." 

In regard to all the fine things the poets and some senti- 
mental philosophers have uttered about the state of nature, 
in which they suppose men to have been born, and in 
which so many now live, I will only say, with Archbishop 
Whately, " As to the alleged advantages of savage life, the 
freedom enjoyed by man in a wild state, the pure simplic- 
ity, magnanimity, and generosity of character which he 
exhibits, — I need not, I trust, detain you by offering proof 



THE ORIGINAL STATE OF MAX. 



Oil 



that all this exists only in poems and romances, or in the 
theories of the well-known Rousseau. The liberty enjoyed 
by the savage consists in his being left free to oppress and 
plunder any one who is weaker than himself, and of being 
exposed to the same treatment from those who are stronger. 
His boasted simplicity consists merely in grossness of taste, 
improvidence, and ignorance. His virtue merely amounts 
to this, that though not less covetous, envious, and mali- 
cious than civilized man, he wants the skill to be as dan- 
gerous as one of equally depraved character, but more in- 
telligent and better informed." Such was not man as he 
came forth from his Maker's hands, only a little lower than 
the angels, — being in the image of God as to knowledge 
and holiness, — when he dwelt in the garden of Eden, or 
even as he was on the outside of it, still beholding and 
remembering what he was, and having the hope of one 
day reaching a higher and happier one above.* 

* See two admirable articles, on the subject treated of in the foregoing chap- 
ter, by President I.iniLtlev, of Nashville College, Tennessee, in the " Biblical Re- 
pository," published at Anduver in the year I5IO. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 



ON THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN K ACE. 

The great apparent diversity in the human family, as to 
complexion, form, disposition, and mental power, has led 
to the inquiry whether it had one and the same origin. A 
doubt on this subject is scepticism as to our holy religion. 
A denial of one origin is a denial of the Mosaic history, 
and a disproof of it must be fatal to the whole Christian 
system. If there be such and so great variety from the 
first, how can one moral code answer for all, either for 
this present life or for the judgment of the great day? 
"What a wide door would this open to licentiousness, by 
making every man his own lawgiver, according to his 
origin, since God has not given us various codes. For 
which of the races did Christ die? Which of these 
varieties did he assume? It is written, "As in Adam all 
die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive ;" and that 
" God hath made of one blood all the nations upon earth." 
Surely nothing can more strongly set forth the identity of 
the human race than these words of the apostle: "As the 
blood courses through the body, binding together and giv- 
ing life to all the members, so the whole human family is 
bound together by one blood or nature." Should it be said 
that although a number of first pairs were made in differ- 
ent countries and times, yet God, with whom all things 
are possible, could easily have made them so alike, so 
identical, as that one code of morals and religion might 



UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE. 513 

answer for all now, and one rule of judgment answer for 
all at the great day, — we reply, that such is too unphilo- 
BOphical, and too contrary to God's mode of proceeding 
with the various orders of heings on earth, to satisfy even 
the ohjectors themselves ; and that, if such had been the 
case, tradition and history would have heen full of these 
different creations. What does the oldest of all histories, — 
the hook of Genesis, — say on this point? It gives us the 
particulars of the creation of one man and one woman in 
Eden, of their children, and the settlement of the same 
throughout the old world, without an allusion to the crea- 
tion of any others — these heing sufficient for the peopling 
of the old world before the flood. It tells us of one family 
heing miraculously preserved in the ark, while all the rest 
of mankind was destroyed. Not a hint is there of any 
person dwelling in some distant part of the earth heing 
Bftved, or any new creation of human heings in order to 
replenish the earth. All subsequent scriptures recognize 
this as the true account, and not a word, from Genesis to 
licvelation, can he so tortured as to countenance a dif- 
ferent doctrine. If such a remarkable fact as the crea- 
tion of different pairs of parents to mankind, in different 
countries and climates, and of any different character and 
appearance, had occurred, .muvIv Moses, in (•numerating 
all the different animals which God made, and the differ- 
ent families before and after the flood, must have made 
some reference, to it. lie tells us of giants before the 
flood, but never intimates a different origin for them. 

And DOW, if we adapt and apply the principle of our 
book, and see what other histories and traditions testify as 
to this point, we shall be strengthened in our conviction of 
the truth of the Mosaic account of the human family. If 
there had been these different creations of men, what a 
theme would there have heen therein afforded for the wild 
fictions of the poets, and the dreams of the phil isophers !' 
33 



514 THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 

Chaotic as the mytholog} 1- of the heathen was, numerous 
as were their gods, rivals and enemies as they often were, 
how much more so if such ground had been furnished for 
multiplying their hero-gods, and engaging them in angry 
contests ! "We have seen, in the previous chapters of this 
book, how many of the ancient traditions point to the fact 
of the formation of two first parents of the human race, 
of their Asiatic birthplace, of their fall from primitive 
holiness and happiness, of the destruction of the race by 
a deluge with the exception of one family, from whom 
alone the world was replenished. The first parents, 
Chronos or Saturn, and lihea, were born of Coelus and 
Terra, — that is, made by God out of Terra or earth, — whose 
sons, Jupiter, Pluto, and Neptune, divided the earth be- 
tween them ; Jupiter marrying his own sister, as must 
needs have been, and calling her his sister-wife. Different 
nations may have claimed for themselves the honor of the 
birthplace of the human race, as also of the mount on 
which the ark rested, but they all speak of one and the 
same origin of man, and the one great deluge. The his- 
tory of the confusion of languages at Babel, and the mul- 
tiplication of them ever since, is another testimony to the 
unity of the human race. Had there been various fami- 
lies created, different languages would have been the un- 
avoidable result, both before and after the flood, and there 
would have been no difficulty in accounting for the variety 
of tongues. But not only sacred history, but profane 
tradition informs us, that before the dispersion from 
Babel all were of one speech ; that the diversity of lan- 
guage commenced at that time. Moreover, sacred and 
profane history agree most remarkably as to the settle- 
ment of the earth by those who survived the deluge ; all 
the families issuing from Central Asia, where the de- 
scendants of Noah dwelt for a period. 

If there was any part of the world where a new crea- 



UNITY OF THE HUMAN" RACE. 515 

tion was necessary, that part was America; but the traditions 
of the Peruvians, Mexicans, and the more northern tribes, 
all declare that their ancestors came from the other hem- 
isphere, and the identity of their religions principles and 
worship with that of the Asiatics, Europeans, and Afri- 
cans, establishes the fact. 

Although the character and object of this book only 
call for a statement of the scriptural account of the 
unity of the races, and such confirmation of the same as 
tradition and mythology confirm, yet, since the subject is 
one of deep interest and importance at the present time 
by reason of the assaults made upon our holy religion 
through doubts insinuated as to the unity of the human 
race, we shall be excused for a brief allusion to some of 
the principal defence of it by the learned of our day. 

First : It is asserted, not merely of man, but of the various 
nUKM <>f animals, that they originated from one pair, made 
by the hands of God himself; as one proof of which it is 
affirmed that they cannot intermingle, and then perpetuate 
the hybrid or mixed race which results, beyond one gen- 
eration. Thus, the mule is the progeny of the ass and the 
horse, but never goes further. Many animals of the same 
species become, by the operation of the circumstances of 
climate, food, etc., very different from each other, and 
form what are called varieties ; but then these varieties 
i an intermingle, and yet perpetuate their offspring. Not 
so with tho-c originally distinct. Thus with men: had 
they been, from the first, distinct races, as some maintain, 

thev must, according to the lawe established for the animal 

race, have continued di-tinct ; whereas, in all ago and 
countries w e .-ee them intermarn ing and perpetuating the 
human race, — the color, features, form, etc., being only 
modified according as the ollVpring partook of the pecu- 
liarities of the parents. 

Second: It is contended by some, who deny the unity of 



516 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



the human race as the result of the formation of one pair 
originally, that the great diversities of color and confor- 
mation of the body are opposed to the doctrine ; hut these 
objectors are all thrown into confusion when they come to 
settle the question as to the number of the original types. 
Some say only three ; others, seventeen ; others, all the 
numbers between three and seventeen. Nor is this at all 
wonderful, considering the almost endless diversities of 
the human race in some particulars, none of which, how- 
ever, affecting the main features of resemblance and iden- 
tity. The difficulties attending a satisfactory account of 
the varieties of the human race on the supposition that all 
are descended from one pair, are as nothing compared to 
those which belong to the question of the number of types 
originally formed, on the theory of different creations. 

The subject of color is the great stumbling-block to 
many. It is asked, How is it possible, in so short a time, 
for any amount of heat from the sun, or reflection from the 
arid sand, or exposure, to produce the negro color, such as 
it exists in large portions of Africa, and has existed from 
an early period after the deluge ? A recent infidel writer 
affirms that there are monuments in Egypt establishing 
the existence of this color in the human body twenty -four 
hundred years before Christ, which might be beyond the 
deluge. 

But even supposing that these monuments were thus 
ancient, and were not the imposition of later years, as we 
are persuaded is the case, and that they were older than 
the flood, who can say that there was no dark complexion 
before the deluge, produced by the same causes which 
have produced them since ? No one can undertake to 
affirm or deny it. Some there are who account for the 
three leading colors of men, — the fair, the tawny, and the 
black, — by contending that, by an act of providence, these 
three were impressed upon the three sons of Noah ; that 



UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE. 



517 



Japlieth was fair, Shem tawny, and Ham black ; that 
their descendants inherited the color of the fathers. Be- 
sides the want of any scriptural authority for this theory, 
well attested history is against it, for many of the descend- 
ants of Ham in various countries were fair, and tawny ; 
while some of the descendants of Shem in South India, 
even in the time of Homer, were black, and many of the 
descendants of nam in Africa, from Egypt to Mount At- 
las, along the Mediterranean, were tawny colored. AVe 
must therefore resort to the able work of Dr. Samuel 
Stanhope Smith on color, written more than sixty years 
ago, fur the most satisfactory explanation of the causes of 
the difference in shades and colors which have distin- 
guished the races of men from an early period, viz: the 
operation of heat and exposure, sickness, and hard fare, to 
which the Africans of the interior have been peculiarly 
subjected. According to his reasons, the dark color of the 
Africans may have been hastened by the fact that Mis- 
raim, or Phut, the sons of Ham, one of whom was the an- 
cestor of the more central Africans, may at his birth have 
been of a darker color, as is often the case in the fairest 
families. He may have married a wife of similar com- 
plexion, and thus a darker hue have been transmitted to 
their posterity ; and that posterity, being subjected to a 
tropical sun in a sickly, bilious region, exposed to all the 
hardships of 6avagc life, may have become darker and 
darker in color, ami more and more gross in their features, 
and thus the varieties of the African race have resulted. 
En a similar way may we, in some measure, account for 
all the varieties in all the tribes and nations of the earth. 

Third '. Another argument in favor of the unity of the 
human race is drawn from the study of languages, an- 
cient and modern. Its force is accumulating in proportion 
as the learned are making researches into the primary 
words or roots of the numerous languages of the earth, 



51S 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



and finding out the identity of their origin. Sir William 
Jones began this work in Asia more than half a century 
since : the most learned linguists in Europe have followed 
in his steps. One worthy American, Professor Schoolcraft, 
has, under the patronage of Congress, established the fact 
that the languages of the aborigines of America may be 
traced to those few tongues which Sir "William Jones and 
others have shown to be the languages of those dispersed 
from the tower of Babel, which few might be traced, doubt- 
less, to the one spoken by the family of Noah in the ark, 
and thus to the first parents of the human race ; although 
no man can now undertake to say which of those carried 
away from Babel partook most largely of the language of 
paradise. 

Fourth, and finally : But the great and overpowering 
argument in favor of the one origin of the human race is, 
the exact adaptation of one religion to all the varieties 
thereof. We have seen how human nature, in all ages and 
countries, has called for a religion which had one God 
above all, (though there were intervening and mediating 
deities,) which had atoning sacrifices, divine assistance, and 
future rewards and punishments; and notwithstanding all 
the perversions and corruptions of the same, these things 
surely pointed to a common origin, which is now more 
certainly established by the fact of the admirable suit- 
ableness of our holy religion to the wants of all mankind. 
Wherever the Christian religion is taught and embraced, 
whether in heathen or Christian lands, it is understood, 
felt, and acted upon in the same way, whether by the 
king on his throne, or the peasant in his cot. 

I conclude with the following passage from the admira- 
ble treatise of Dr. Cabell, Professor in the University of 
Virginia, on the unity of the human race. 

" The unity of the human race must be considered a 
fundamental and accepted truth. Every department of 



DOTTY OF THE HUMAN* RACE. 



519 



knowledge has been searched for evidence, and all respond 
with a uniform testimony. Tlie physical structure, con- 
stitution, and habits of the race, the mode in which it is 
produced, in which it exists, in which it perishes, every 
thing which touches its mere animal existence, demon- 
strates the absolute certainty of its unity, so that no other 
generalization of physiology is more clear and more sure. 
Rising one step, to the highest manifestation of man's phys- 
ical organization, his use of language and the power of 
connected speech — the most profound survey of this most 
Complex and tedious part of knowledge conducts the in- 
quirer to no conclusion more indubitable than that there 
is a common origin, a common organization, a common 
nature, underlying and running through this endless va- 
riety of a common power, peculiar to the race and to it 
alone. Thus, a second science, Philology, has borne its 
marvellous testimony. 

" Rising one more 6tep, and passing more completely to 
a higher region, we find the rational and moral nature of 
men, of every age and kindred, absolutely the same: — 
those great faculties by which man alone, and yet by 
which every man perceives that there is in things that 
distinction which we call true and false, and that other 
distinction which we call good and evil ; upon which dis- 
tinctions and which faculties rest at last the moral and 
intellectual destinies of the entire race, belonging to us as 
men, without which we are not men, with which we are 
the bead of the visible creation of God. So has a third 
science, a Bcience which treats of the whole moral consti- 
tution of man, embracing in its wide scope many subor- 
dinate sciences, delivered its testimony. If we rise another 
Step, and survey man as he is gathered into families and 
tribes and nations, with an endless variety of develop- 
ment, we still behold the broad foundations of a common 
nature reposing under all, the grand principles of a com- 



520 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



mon being ruling in the midst of all. So a fourth and 
the youngest of the sciences, Ethnology, brings her trib- 
ute. 

"And now, from this lofty summit survey the whole 
track of ages, in their length and in their breadth ; scru- 
tinize the recorded annals of mankind : there is not one 
page on which one fact is written which favors the his- 
torical idea of a diversity of nature or origin, while the 
whole scope of human story involves, assumes, and pro- 
claims, as the first and grandest historic truth, the abso- 
lute unity of the race. And then, mounting from earth to 
heaven, ask God — the God of truth — and he will tell you 
that the foundation truth of all his works of creation and 
of providence is the sublime certainty that our race was 
created in his own image and of one blood ; and thereup- 
on, when they had fallen, he offered to them a common 
salvation through his only-begotten Son, made manifest in 
their common nature. 

"A bond of common brotherhood unites every portion 
of the race ; it is felt the most keenly by those who are 
the most exalted ; and even in the most abject, its weak 
pulsations will still live to attest the depth of the truth, 
that our race is one. It is in the life and doctrine of Jesus 
Christ that this profound instinct of human nature finds 
itself exalted into one of the grandest truths of religion, 
and invested with the sanction of heaven. In Him the 
conception of this universal brotherhood, which nature 
teaches and all knowledge fortifies, becomes a precious, 
living truth." 



UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE. 



521 



ADDITIONAL A3 TO THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN EACE. 

" Why human beings," says Dr. Cabell, " should have 
ever directed their wanderings to the regions of perpetual 
winter, we do not think it necessary to inquire. We will, 
however, venture to remark, that since the plan of God's 
wise providence has included the partial occupation by 
man of these inhospitable climes, there is no more diffi- 
culty in conceiving that he may have effected this by dis- 
posing a portion of his rational creatures to select such a 
home, than there would be in recognizing his power to 
create a distinct type of mankind as an autochthon (orig- 
inal) of the soil." Dr. Cabell is here combating the the- 
ory of those who maintain that different races must have 
been formed to suit the different climates and latitudes, as 
the Esquimaux and others. He quotes Ly ell's celebrated 
work in explanation of the fact that such barren and cold 
regions were settled at so early a period : " In an early 
stage of society, the necessity of hunting acts as a prin- 
ciple of repulsion, causing men to spread with the greatest 
rapidity over a country until the whole is covered with 
scattered settlements. It lias been calculated that eight 
hundred acres of hunting-ground produce only as much 
food as half an aere of arable land. "When the game has 
been in a measure exhausted, and a state of pasturage 
succeeds, the >e\ eral hunter tribes, being already scattered, 
may multiply in a short time into the greatest number 
which the pastoral state is capable of sustaining." "The 
necessity," fays Mrand, "thus imposed upon the savage 
state of dispersing themselves far and wide over the 
country, affords a reason why at an early period the worst 
parts of the earth may have become inhabited." 

Sir Charles Lyell adduces many instances of shipwreck 
in proof of the mode in which the inhabitants of the old 



522 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



world may have been at an early period cast on the shores 
of the American continent, and become the first colonists, 
so as to supersede the necessity of a separate creation ac- 
cording to the infidel theory. He says that Cooke, Foster, 
and others affirm that parties of savages in their canoes 
must have often lost their way, and been driven on dis- 
tant shores, where they were forced to remain, deprived 
both of the means and of the requisite intelligence for re- 
turning to their own country. 

Captain Cook found, on the Island of Wateeo, three 
inhabitants of Otaheite, who had been drifted thither in 
a canoe, although the distance between the islands is five 
hundred and fifty miles. Other instances are mentioned 
of crews in canoes, with men, women, and children, being 
drifted from two to eight hundred miles. One instance is 
mentioned of a party being drifted fifteen hundred miles. 
They were in the open sea for eight months, according to 
their reckoning by the moon, making a knot in a cord at 
eveiy new moon : being expert fishermen, they subsisted 
entirely on the produce of the sea, and when the rain fell, 
laid in as much fresh water as they had vessels to contain 
it. 

The space traversed, in some instances, says Mr. Lyell, 
was so great, that similar accidents might suffice to trans- 
port canoes from various parts of Africa to the shores of 
South America, and from Spain to the Azores, and thence 
to North America, so that mankind in a rude state of so- 
ciety is liable to be scattered involuntarily by the winds 
and waves over the globe in a manner singularly an- 
alogous to that in which many plants and animals are 
diffused. 

"We have already mentioned Mr. Maury's opinion on 
the subject, but it deserves repetition and enlargement. 
In reply to some question put to him by Professor School- 
craft, he says, "You wish me to state whether, in my 



UNITY OF THE HUMAN KACE. 



523 



opinion, the Pacific Polynesian waters could have been 
navigated in early times, (supposing the winds had been 
then as they are now,) in boats and other rude vessels of 
the early ages. I answer, yes ; if you had a supply of pro- 
visions, you could run down the trades in the Pacific on a 
log ; there is no part of the world where nature would 
tempt a savage man more strongly to launch out upon the 
open sea with his hark, however frail. Most of those isl- 
ands are surrounded by coral reefs, between which and 
the shore the water is as smooth as a mill-pond. 

k ' In reply to your second question, as to the possihility 
of long voyages before the invention of the compass, I 
answer, that such chance voyages are not only possible, 
but more than probable. When we take into considera- 
tion the position of North America with regard to Asia, 
of New Holland with regard to Africa, with the winds 
and currents of the ocean, it would have been more re- 
markahle that America should not have been peopled 
from Asia, or New Holland from Africa, than that they 
should have been. Captain Pay, of the whale-ship Su- 
perior, fished two years ago in Behring Straits; he saw 
canoes going from one continent to the other.'' 

Mr. Maury also >peaks of a gulf stream from the shores 
of China. ''Along its course westerly winds are the pre- 
vailing winds, and we have well-authenticated instances 
in which these two agents (the gulf stream and the 
wind--) have brought mariners in disabled vessels over to 
the coast of America." 

For further information on the subject of the human 
race, I refer to the chapter on the human family in Mr. 
Pendleton's reemt work, ,- Science ;i Witness to the Bible,'' 
in which he adduces a number of illustrations and proofs 
of the views contained in Professor Cabell's book, which 
make it ;m excellent companion to the same. I also refer 
with pleasure to the argument drawn from the similarity 



524 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



of the various languages of men, as used by Cardinal 
Wiseman in his masterly work on " Science and Revealed 
Religion." The whole work is recommended to the reader 
as full of striking and interesting proofs that the God of 
nature and revelation is one and the same ; that the Bible 
rightly understood, and science well established, are in 
perfect harmony. 

On the subject of the common origin of languages, the 
cardinal says it has been clearly proved that one group or 
family of languages pervaded a large part of Europe and 
Asia. The great members of this group or family are the 
Sanscrit, or ancient and sacred language of India ; the 
Persian, ancient and modern, formerly considered a Tartar 
dialect; the Teutonic, with its various dialects, Sclavo- 
nian, Greek, and Latin, accompanied by its numerous de- 
rivations ; to which may be added the Celtic dialects. It 
has been found that new and important connections exist 
between these. The Teutonic dialects receive light from 
the language of Persia. The Latin language has remark- 
able points of contact with Russian and other Sclavonian 
idioms, and the theory of the Greek verbs cannot be 
understood without recourse to their parallels in San- 
scrit and Indian grammars. Thus may they all be 
traced up to one common source. The cardinal quotes 
the learned Alexander von Humboldt as saying, that 
"however insulated certain languages may at first ap- 
pear, however singular their caprices and idioms, all have 
an analogy among them." He says, " In eighty-three 
American languages, examined by Messrs. Barton and 
Vater, one hundred and seventy words have been found, 
the roots of which appear to be the same, and numbers 
of them resemble the languages of the old world so strik- 
ingly as to force conviction upon the mind that they had 
their origin there. The structure of all the American 
languages leaves no room to doubt that they all form one 



UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE. 



525 



individual family, so strong is the grammatical analogy. 
Especially is this the case with the formation of the verbs, 
from one extremity of America to the other. 

Professor Schoolcraft, under the patronage of the Ameri- 
can government, has been for a number of years carrying 
on this investigation ; and in various articles, to be seen in 
hifi six folio volumes, has more and more clearly estab- 
lished the above in relation to the numerous dialects of 
the North American Indians. 



CHAPTEE XXXYI1I. 



ON THE OKACLES E THE HEATHEN. 

Befoke entering upon the consideration of these, we 
must, according to the plan of our work, inquire what 
there is in the Sacred Scriptures to which these oracles cor- 
respond, and to which they bear witness, as we believe 
there is nothing very general in the world which does not 
point to something which existed among God's people, 
either before or after the flood, or during both periods. 
The earliest use of the word Oracle in scripture was in 
reference to the covering of the ark or chest in which the 
laws of Moses were shut up, and from above which God 
manifested his will and delivered responses to Moses. It 
sometimes was designated "The holy of holies," in the 
temple where the ark was kept.* Dreams and visions, 
such as God sent to the patriarchs, and the interpretation 
of dreams such as Joseph and Daniel were inspired to 
give to Pharaoh, Darius, and Nebuchadnezzar, were also 
oracles, or answers from God. The answers to the high 
priest by means of certain signs and appearances on the 
urim and thummim, of the breast-plate, and the revela- 
tions to the prophets, were the oracles of God among the 
Jews. The recorded scriptures of the Old Testament are 
called the living oracles of God, in opposition to the false 

* It is somewhat remarkable that the tripod of the heathen oracles was orig- 
inally not a three-footed stool, but a chest or ark filled with stones. — Calius. 



ORACLES OF THE HEATHEN*. 



527 



or dead oracles of the heathen. " If any man speak," 
says the apostle, "let him speak as the oracles of God." 
These are the oracles which all Christians are bound to 
consult in the momentous concerns of the soul, and with 
the assurance of a true and intelligible response. LTow 
long and how extensively God may have communicated 
by dreams and visions and angelic messages to the patri- 
archs, before the call of Abraham, and during his life in 
other than the chosen family, is not told us. That he did 
thus communicate with Melchisedec, Job, and others, we 
have good reason to believe. After the establishment of 
idolatry, the hero-gods began to be consulted in their tem- 
plesand cavern-;, and answers were sought for and said to be 
received ; but it is believed that this mode of consulting 
the Deity was rare, in the early ages. Homer only men- 
tions two of the oracles, — that of Jupiter Dodona in Epirus, 
and <>t" Apollo at Delphi, in Phocis, near Mount Parnassus. 
These, with the temple of Jupiter Amnion in the des- 
erts of Libya, were the principal oracles. In process of 
time they became multiplied, so that in the small province 
of Po-otia there were not less than twenty-live, and the same 
number in Peloponnesus, the later hero-gods aspiring to 
the honor of having oracular temples. They are consulted 
not only on the more important questions of peace and 
war, or settling colonics, or changing governments, but 
even on the affaire of private life. The oracular temples 
were usually located in deep forests, or steep, craggy places. 
Sometimes the tripod or chair on which the priest or 
priestess was seated was over the mouth of a cavern, and 
the vapor issuing from it was said to have a powerfully 
Stimulating effect, inspiring or infuriating those who were 
upon it. The answers delivered were either in prose or 
wise, and were always in .nunc mysterious or enigmatical 
or ambiguous form, BO that in either event, whether fortu- 
nate or otherwise, the credit of the oracle might be bus- 



528 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



tained. Oftentimes the answer was to be inferred, not from 
anything said, but from the flight of birds, or some appear- 
ance in the sky, or some unnatural sound, so that all was 
uncertainty. Still it is an admitted fact, that these oracles 
were held in high repute until the Christian era, when they 
rapidly declined, so that even that at Delphi was closed ; 
for Juvenal says, 

" Delphis oracula cessant. 
Et genus humanum damnat caligo futuri."* 

If it were only the common people, and some very credu- 
lous and superstitious ones of the higher orders who be- 
lieved in them, we might account for it in the same way 
that we do for the popularity of the tribes of fortune-tel- 
lers and jugglers and astrologers, which have found em- 
ployment and gained some credit in all ages and countries, 
with a certain portion of mankind. But what shall we 
say to the countenance given to them and the use made of 
them by statesmen and generals and kings and philoso- 
phers? It is supposed by some that these did not really 
believe in them, but only used them to gain certain ob- 
jects with the credulous soldiers and people, when they 
wished to stimulate them to war or some great enterprise. 
It is well known that besides rich presents by which to 
propitiate the oracle, bribes were sometimes used to pro- 
cure a favorable answer, as with our fortune-tellers. It is 
also well known that a difference of opinion prevailed 
among the ancients as to their reliability. Eusebius, 
among the fathers of the Christian church, who believed 
that nothing but human ingenuity and fraud sustained 

* The most learned heathen were very much at a loss how to give a tolerable 
account of it. Porphyry says, " Since Jesus began to be worshipped, no man 
has received any public help or benefit from the gods." Christians under- 
stand how it is that the oracles were deserted, in those words of our Lord : " I 
beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." All idolatry and falsehood are the 
works of the devil — " the prince of the powers of the air." 



ORACLES OF THE HEATHEN". 



529 



their declarations, says that there were not less than six 
hundred authors among the heathen themselves who wrote 
against the reality of the oracles. Although the fathers 
generally ascribed to them something superhuman, and 
said that the father of evil spirits aided them, yet there are 
those who think that fur the most part this was considered 
the best method of arguing against them with the hea- 
then, viz., to charge them with collusion with the devil, 
though they regarded all their answers as the works of 
human fraud. Among the moderns different sides have 
been espoused. .Bishop Sherlock contended that they were 
inspired by the father of lies. Dr. Middleton has taken 
the other side, maintaining that nothing but human sagac- 
ity and deception spoke from their oracles. That they did 
deliver some answers as to future events, of a most remark- 
able character, so as to gain them great credit, is too noto- 
rious to be denied. Their continuing for so long a period 
cannot be accounted for, except on the supposition of some- 
thing very remarkable in their character and conduct. The 
character of some of these answers ought to be examined 
into, in order that we may form a proper idea of the neces- 
sity for some supernatural assistance, whether of God or 
Satan, in order to make them. The ambiguous answer of 
the oracle of Delphi to Pyrrhus, when he wished to engage 
in a war with the Romans, requires no supernatural aid. 
It was a mere play upon words, — " Aio to Eacida, Roma- 
no* vincerc p< — ;" as it can be, with equal accuracy, 
grammatically rendered, "1 know that you, Pyrrhus, 
can conqner the Romans," <>r '"That the Romans can con- 
quer you, Pjrrhna," The oracle was safe, however the 
war might eventuate. I5ut the famous answer to Croesus, 
king of LydijL, when about to engage in a war with Per- 
sia, is of a different character. Ueing doubtful of the oracle, 
Cnesus determines tir-t to try its superhuman knowledge, 
and sent a messenger, who, at the end of a hundred days, 
34 



530 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



must inquire what the occupation of the king at that time 
would be. The reply of the god was, "That he smelt the 
odor of a lamb boiled with a tortoise, while brass was at 
once above and beneath it," and such it was said was ac- 
tually his occupation at the time. It is clear that none but 
God, or some swift-winged spirit, could in a moment have 
flown from once place to another, or could communicate 
such information. We can readily conceive that some 
exalted spirit might do this. But Croesus, wishing to be 
more sure, sent to inquire of the oracle whether he would 
be victorious in the proposed war : to which an ambig- 
uous answer was returned, viz., " That he would over- 
throw a great empire." In order to a true and positive 
answer to the last question, foreknowledge was necessary 
— an attribute of the Deity — which no being, human or 
angelic, possesses, except so far as God speaks by such 
a one. The oracle, therefore, resorts to ambiguity. Croe- 
sus, wishing to be yet more sure, inquires whether his 
power would ever be diminished. This also required 
knowledge of future events, and therefore the oracle resorts 
to a subterfuge, and advises the monarch to consult his 
safety by flight " whenever a mule should reign over the 
Medes;" which Croesus understood as insuring him suc- 
cess, since a mule could not be king. But it turned out that 
the mule was Cyrus, the Medo-Persian, who united the 
two kingdoms of Medea and Persia, and conquered Croe- 
sus. In either event the credit of the oracle was secure. 
If Croesus was victorious and kept the kingdom, then the 
oracle had declared the truth, by saying that he would be 
so until a mule should reign — a thing impossible. If he 
was overcome, then the oracle had prophesied it, and it 
was fulfilled in the union of the Medes and Persians under 
Cyrus, by the conquest of Croesus. The first answer is 
therefore the only one which requires superhuman power, 
the others being ingenious subterfuges. The only ques- 



ORACLES OF THE HEATHEN". 531 

tion therefore is, whether some superior being did aid these 
institutions. That the demons or hero-gods of the heathen 
did not and could not aid them, all who accept the scrip- 
tures must believe. God declares that Jupiter, Apollo, 
Minerva, and all the supposed deities of the different ora- 
cles, were nonentities, vanities, no gods, and of course 
could impart no knowledge whatever of things present or 
to come. Our God disavows all superintendence or gov- 
ernment over them, except such as he exerts over every- 
thing in the universe, and by which he derives some good 
out of all evil, and makes all things contribute to some wise 
end. But, although there are no gods such as the heathen 
worship, there arc other beings besides men who are 
spoken of in scripture, called "principalities, powers, and 
spiritual wickedness," who though not seen among men 
had something to do with men. Ancient mythologies 
have many traditions of 6uch an order of malicious beings. 
The scripture makes frequent mention of them. It tells of 
an order of angels which was banished from heaven for 
pride and rebellion. At the time of our Saviour's resi- 
dence on earth they were numerous and most annoying. 
Although they knew who he was, and were forced to ac- 
knowledge his divine character, yet were they not re- 
strained from evil, but took possession of the bodies of men, 
ami tormented them. This was doubtless permitted that 
1 1 10 power and grace of Christ might lie the more mani- 
fested in their discomfiture, hut there was one anions 
them as a prince and leader, called heel/.ebuh, — >l i'rincc of 
the devils," " Prince of the powers of the air," — who doubt- 
less possessed talents and abilities of the highest order, 
next perhaps to the (tod against whom lie rebelled, and by 
whom he and his followers were cast out of heaven. lie 
it was who first appeared on earth at the birthplace of our 
first parents, and under the guise of a serpent deceived 
them. He it is of whom we read in the books of Moses, 



t 



532 THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 

and Job, and the prophets, as the persevering enemy of 
the human race. He it was who had the daring to assail 
the Son of God by his temptation, and even perverted the 
oracles of God to induce him to violate his duty to the 
Father. With him the Saviour contended in the wilder- 
ness, and cast him down like lightning from heaven. 
Now the question before the Christian world, from the time 
of the fathers to the present day, is, whether God may not 
have permitted this author of all evil so far to influence the 
heathen oracles as to enable them to speak some remark- 
able things, whereby to establish great credit among men. 
God might, without granting to him, or through him to 
others, his own attribute of prescience, allow to him the 
power of acquiring much knowledge of the affairs of men, 
and of rapid and invisible flight from place to place, so as 
to answer the first question of Croesus, in reference to his 
occupation at a certain time and place, while he could not 
answer the other two, which required the divine power of 
foreknowledge, except by enigmas and subterfuges. Those 
who advocate this view of the devil's influence in oracles 
say, that God may have allowed it for the purpose of using 
his instrumentality in favor of good, since the oracles, like 
the pagan mysteries at first, did advocate the cause of virtue 
and religion. No one can read the history of Greece, as 
given by Herodotus, and borrowed from him by others, in 
that most interesting and critical period when the millions 
from Asia, under Xerxes, Darius, and Mardonius seemed 
about to devour the little handful of Athenian Spar- 
tans, without admiring and acknowledging the spirit of 
humble dependence on some superior beings which was 
shown by their constant appeals to the gods and oracles, 
before the almost incredible escapes and victories which 
signalized that most eventful period. Herodotus, though 
evidently not much inclined to favor the oracles, yet says 
that he dare not disbelieve them. Their encouraging re- 



ORACLES OF THE HEATHEN. 



533 



sponses, whether the result of bribery and corruption or of 
anything else, certainly bad the effect of stimulating to 
the most daring deeds of defensive war that the history of 
man has ever furnished.* 

But in opposition to the belief of superhuman assistance 
and inspiration to the oracles, from the great enemy of 
mankind and father of lies, it is asked, Can it be believed 
that God, to whom this wicked one is subject, would allow 
him thus to deceive the world and give encouragement to 
falsehood and idolatry ? To this it may be answered, that 
God permitted him in the form of a serpent to tempt and 
deceive our first parents, and to continue his evil influence 
over men to this day ; he was permitted to put it into the 
heart of Judas to betray our Lord, and into the heart of 
Ananias to lie to the Holy Ghost ; he has permitted him 
to appear sometimes in the garb of an angel of light, to 
"deceive, if it were possible, the very elect." Sometimes 

• In one place Herodotus eay», " In thug speaking of them, (the oracles,) may 
I meet with indulgence holh frotn gods and heroes." In another place, speak- 
ing of some tiling* which occurred during the wars between the Athenians and 
I'emiarM, he says, " I neither dure myself to say anything against oracles nor 
allow others to do to." The wonderful deliverances of the Greeks at that time 
raised the oraeles of the gods to high esteem. The language which Herodotus 
puts into their mouths is remarkahle. The Athenians, refusing to accept the 
terms of Xerxes by Mardonius, said, "We will trust in the gods who fight for us, 
nnd in the heroes whose images and temples he has burnt." While supplica- 
ting Apollo at Delphi, during the war with Xerxes, they said, " We will never 
depart from thy sanctuary without a favorable answer, but will remain here un- 
til we die ," reminding as of wrestling Jacob who became prevailing Israel, " I 
will not let thee go, except thou bless me." Alt«r the defeat of the Persians, 
Theniistocles is made to soy, " We have not wrought this deliverance ourselves, 
hut the gods and the heroes, who were jealous that one man should reign over 
both Europe and Asia, and he unholy and wicked." The piety of the Greeks is 
compared to the impiety of Xerxes, who scourged tbe Hellespont for having de- 
stroyed his fleet. The fatalism of the Persians is also spoken of by Herodotus. 
He says tluit one of the Persians who heard it himself, told him that a great mau 
in the army of Mardonius, before the battle of Plates, predicted the destruction 
of the army, saying, " That which is fated by the Itcity to happen, must be ; it 
is impossible f.ir mau to orert. We follow by being bound by necessity." 



534 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



he goes through the earth like a roaring lion, seeking 
whom he ma} 7 ' devour. 

It seems to belong to the nature and condition of men, 
while under probation, to be exposed to some temptation, 
but it is also a part of that condition to be able to resist 
such temptation. In opposition to the language of some 
who say we are under the necessity of yielding to tempta- 
tion, God declares, " Let no man say when he is tempted, 
I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted of evil, 
neither tempteth he any man ; but every man is tempted 
when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed ; 
and lust when it has conceived bringeth forth sin, and sin 
when it is finished bringeth forth death." 

This declaration of God we may undoubtedly apply to 
the temptation of our first parents and all of their children 
by the devil. Had God sent him forth into the world 
with irresistible power to do evil ; had our first parents 
been left alone in paradise with the deceitful tempter and 
with no power to resist him ; had not God given them a 
law, and been near at hand to aid them to obey it, there 
might have been cause to complain that he was a hard 
task-master, laying on man more than he was able to bear. 
But the language of God to our first parents and his treat- 
ment of them plainly show that they did not sin igno- 
rantly and under any avoidable necessity, through the 
power of the devil. 

So it has been ever since, with the whole race of man- 
kind ; they have been exposed to temptation from the evil 
one — " the prince of this world" — and yet he has not had 
almighty and irresistible power. [Limits have been set 
to that power by God himself. Even though he may 
have been permitted to do and say some wonderful things 
through the oracles, which turned out to be true, for the 
most part he failed, was the father of lies, and constant 
apologies for the oracles were required. God never per- 



ORACLES OF THE HEATHEN. 

mitted him to interfere with the free agency necessary to 
man in his probationary state. He had his chain, and 
that chain was in the hand of God, who said to him — 
" Thus far shalt thou go, and no further." 

We need not fear to admit that this wise and artful 
being might be permitted by God to create some mischief 
among men by means of oracles, and the superhuman 
answers made through them, since he was permitted, 
through the instrumentality of a serpent, to do mischief 
in paradise. God permits evil men to be seducers, and 
yet not to force others to yield to their seductions. lie 
gives the power of resistance to us, and calls on us to ex- 
ert it, and promises divine assistance to enable us to resist 
evil and do good ; we have also good men to allure us into 
the paths of duty, in opposition to those who would lead 
us into evil. So, in opposition to the evil persuasions of 
the devil and his angel.s, we have good angels to help us in 
our efforts of piety. Moreover, our Lord said that " lie 
that is for is greater than he that is against us." It 
is promised that if we ''resist the devil, he will tlee from 
us," and that we shall in the end k> beat him down under 
our feet.'' We conclude, therefore, that there is nothing 
OBBeriptura] in the argument for Satanic influence over 
tli'' pagan oracles, though we are not required to believe 
it, because the scriptures do not enjoin the belief. 

That the devil has exerted great power through the 
false priests of t'aUe religions, we may infer from the facts 
recorded in scripture concerning the rod of Moses. When 
it was turned into a serpent, J'haraoh's servants did the 
same, but it was |x.'rmitted onh thai Moses' rod might 
swallow up theirs, and thus show who was the true (Jod. 
Simon the sorcerer, and the seven sons of Sceva the Jew, 
who by their craft made much gain, may have been ena- 
bled by Satan to do some wonderful things, but we see 
what Use the apostles made of them. 



536 THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 

We read, says Mr. Faber, in the "Acts of the Apostles," 
of a young female who was possessed with a spirit of 
divination, according to our version, but with a spirit of 
Python, according to the original Greek. This spirit ena- 
bled her to utter certain oracular responses, by which con- 
siderable profit accrued to her master. When she beheld 
Paul and his companions, the spirit was compelled to tes- 
tify through her organs that they were the servants of the 
most high God, and that they came to teach the way of 
salvation. At length the apostle, grieved to see such 
things, charged the spirit, in the name of Jesus Christ, to 
come out of her. This adjuration it was constrained to 
obey. Now, according to the plain and unvarnished im- 
port of this narrative, the young female was possessed by 
an evil spirit, which compelled her to utter responses of 
an oracular nature. The spirit was an intelligent and liv- 
ing agent, as appears from his conveying to the girl a 
clear knowledge of the character and office of St. Paul. 
And he is denominated a spirit of Python, which is the 
precise name of the Delphic serpent that was slain by 
Apollo, but which delivered oracles from a sacred cave in 
Mount Parnassus. This fabulous monster, as it is well 
known, communicated the title of Pythius to the god, and 
of Pythia to his oracular priestess, who was supposed to 
receive the vapor of inspiration through the cleft of a rock. 
Putting these matters together, says Mr. Faber, we cer- 
tainly seem to collect that there was something more than 
mere juggling imposture in the responses of the ancient 
oracles. 

From a careful examination of the opinions of many 
of the most judicious as well as learned writers, ancient 
and modern, I find such to have been their prevailing im- 
pressions, though there be some diversity of sentiment 
among them. 



CHAPTER XXXIX 



ON* THE SUPERIORITY OF THE BIBLE ANT) ITS RELIGION* TO 
ALL OTHER BOOKS AND RELIGIONS. 

Although man must be considered a religious being by 
nature, so far as to have religious instincts inclining him 
to receive the invisible things of God and of another life, 
still there is also in him an evil heart of unbelief, inclin- 
ing him to doubt many things in our sacred books, as well 
as those fahles which are found in the pagan mythologies. 
We have endeavored to furnish an antidote to this dispo- 
sition, so far as it regards the Bible, by presenting an ar- 
gument in its behalf drawn from opposing systems. There 
are some things in those systems which arc well calculated 
to encourage unbelief in the reader as to all religion; 
while there are other things which, rightly used, should 
have a different effect. "We have endeavored to make 
that right use. hy showing that what is good and true in 
the pagan systems must have come from the same source 
with the Bible itself. In drawing our work to a close, we 
purpose to strengthen our argument hy a brief compari- 
son of the mixed and imperfect systems of men with the 
pare and perfect one of Ood, as Been in the scriptures of 
the Old and New Testaments. It has heen rightly said, 
that "Truth i.-> the greatest gift which (tod can hestow, 
or man receive.'' The l'.ihle is emphatically called the 
'* won I of truth." Compared with it, all other hooks, ex- 
cept so far as drawn from thu same source, are hut the 



538 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



cunningly-devised fables of men. This has been " tried 
to the uttermost" by the sophistries of infidels, the re- 
searches of the wise, and the practical experiment of its 
virtue and power on the hearts and lives of millions, and 
has proved itself to be that " word of the Lord which is 
settled forever in heaven." This alone, among all other 
books, is "perfect, entire, wanting nothing." It has been 
the only thing of the kind which has been allowed to get 
old. All other ancient books have only been seen in frag- 
ments and corrupted versions. God has kept this as the 
apple of his eye, placing it in the very bosom of his 
church, against which the gates of hell have not been al- 
lowed to prevail, so as to carry away any of it. Although 
the devil may sometimes take a portion of the word, as 
read or heard, out of the hearts of men, he has never 
been permitted to steal it out of the hands of God's 
church. When our Lord was on earth, though upbraid- 
ing the Jews with so much misunderstanding and perver- 
sion of his word, he never charged them with mutilating 
it, so faithfully had it been kept.* 

Pursuing, as far as may be, the plan of our book, we 
first adduce some passages from scripture descriptive of 
their own character. David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, 

* Cardinal Wiseman, in speaking of the integrity of the scriptures as proved 
by a comparison of all the various readings and versions of the same, says, 
"Although the fathers of every age have been gleaned for these readings, al- 
though the versions of every nation have been ransacked for their renderings, 
although the manuscripts of every age, from the sixteenth to the third century, 
have been again and again visited by industrious swarms, yet has nothing been 
discovered, — no, not one single various reading, — which can throw doubt upon 
any passage before considered certain and decisive in favor of any important doc- 
trine." He mentions the fact that Dr. Buchanan bought a Hebrew manuscript 
used by the black Jews of India, who had for ages been cut off from all com- 
munication with other parts of the world. It was the fragment of an immense 
roll, which must have been originally ninety feet long. It was written at dif- 
ferent times and by different persons, and contains a considerable portion of 
the Pentateuch. On a comparison of it with a standard edition of the Penta- 
teuch, it is found to contain no various reading of the least importance. 



SUPERIORITY OF TTIE BIBLE. 



539 



— the poet laureate of heaven, — who lived in the Augus- 
tan age of Hebrew literature, says, "The words of the 
Lord are pure words ; as silver tried in a furnace, purified 
seven times." In answer to prayer, his " eyes had been 
opened to see wondrous things out of the law." He had 
also hid it in the deep of his heart, and had kept it. 
Thus was he made wiser than his enemies, wiser than his 
teachers, wiser than the aged. Thus does he describe it : 
"The law of the Lord is an undefiled law. converting the 
soul ; the testimony of the Lord is sure, and giveth wis- 
dom unto the simple ; the statutes of the Lord are right, 
and rejoice the heart ; the commandment of the Lord is 
pure, and giveth light unto the eyes; the judgments of 
the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be 
desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold ; 
sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover, 
by them is thy servant taught, ami in keeping of them 
there is great reward." If we study this book, hiding it 
in our hearts — eating it, as the prophet bids — we shall ex- 
perience the truth of these words: "The entrance of thy 
word gives light," and shall find ourselves ever exclaim- 
ing, "Thy testimonies, O Lord, are wonderful." Put 
David only spoke of the scriptures of the Old Testament 
before his time. Let us hear what St. Paul says of the 
same, as eidarged by later prophets, by our Lord, and the 
apor-fli'.-. lb- was a man of letters as well as grace, un- 
derstood profane as well as sacred literature. Though 
once caught up into the third heaven, and seeing unutter- 
able things, lie returned to the earth to study as well as 
teach Sacred Scripture,. "All scripture," he .-ays, "is 
given by inspiration of Ciod, and is profitable for doc- 
trine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in right- 
coumics, that the man of (iod maybe perfect, thoroughly 
furnished unto all good works." 

The psalms of David for devotion, and Paul's epistles 



540 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



for doctrine, seem to comprise all other scriptures on 
these points. The learned Salmasius, on his death-bed, 
said, " Had I but one year more to live, I would spend it 
in reading David's psalms and St. Paul's epistles." " I 
have seen an end of all perfection," said David ; " but 
thy commandment, O God, is exceeding broad." Per- 
haps these words comprehend more than commentators 
usually ascribe to them. David may have known all 
that was true and good in other systems of religion, but 
found that the commandment or word of God was ex- 
ceeding broad, extending and spreading far beyond all of 
them. Other systems cover only a few corners of the 
field of revelation, this occupies the whole area. 

Let us hear the testimonies of some, who, though unin- 
spired among Christians, come as near as practicable to 
the plan of our book. The learned Selden was a great 
scholar and reader, and had the largest library, perhaps, 
in his day. In a conference with Archbishop Usher, just 
before his death, he said, that " notwithstanding he had 
possessed himself of such a vast treasure of books and 
manuscripts on all ancient subjects, yet he could rest his 
soul on none but the scriptures." Sir Matthew Hale, in a 
letter to one of his sons, thus testifies : " I have been ac- 
quainted somewhat with men and books ; I have had long 
experience in learning and in the world ; there is no book 
like the Bible for excellent learning, wisdom, and use ; 
and it is want of understanding in them who think or 
speak otherwise." The king of Sicily once said to the 
celebrated Petrarch, "I tell thee, my Petrarch, these 
holy letters are dearer to me than my kingdom, and were 
I under necessity of quitting one of them, it should be 
my diadem." To these I only add the motto of this book. 

The learned John Locke, on his death-bed, after spend- 
ing twenty years chiefly in the examination of the sacred 
writings, said to a young friend at his bedside, " Study 



SUPERIORITY OF THE BIRLE. 



541 



these books ; they have God for their author, salvation 
for their end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for 
their- matter." 

The power of divine truth is strikingly set forth in the 
historical fact, that it did more to wean the Jews from 
idolatry than all the miracles and judgments of God in 
their behalf ; thus explaining and fulfilling the words of 
our Lord, " They have Moses and the prophets ; if they 
believe not these, neither would they believe though one 
rose from the dead." 

After the Jews, by the decree of Cyrus, had returned 
to their land, and, by the favor of Darius, the temple had 
been rebuilt, the worship restored, and the Sacred Scriptures 
multiplied throughout the land and expounded from the 
pulpit, in the time of Ezra and Xchemiah, the people re- 
turned no more to idolatry. What all their previous and 
long captivities and heavy judgments had failed to do, 
was now effected by the Sacred Scriptures ; and though 
the heavens do declare the glory of God and the firma- 
ment showeth his handywork, and philosophers had been 
pointing to these, and all nature had been teaching God 
for four thousand years, yet one has well asked, " How 
much did men learn i" and truly answered, " Not as much 
as a mother teaches her child out of the Bible in half an 
hour;" adding, "the Bible must teach us the God who is 
in nature before we can find him there. To the heathen 
every thing was god but God himself"* Pantheism has 
ever been the nm-t universal religion ; Mohammedanism 
comes nearest to it, and has done some good by rooting 

• Hoc an interesting discourse by the Rev. C. P. Krunth, of Philadelphia, en- 
tilled "The Bible ■ Perf.-.-t II.... k." See u |,.> tl xcelleiil things said in the 

volume* of Tayh-r l.ewis, in praise of the Bible, especially as to the religious 
name* ..f scripture. Mr. Lewis, in bis work "The Divine Human in Scrip- 
ture," praises (be liible as being "the must translatable of all book*." What 
hook has ever been translated into so many languages? What book would 
bear it? What an advantage this over all other books I 



542 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



or driving out some that were worse. " It was a mon- 
strous plagiarism from the Bible ; it was great only like 
Prometheus, in the fire which it had stolen."* 

Let us proceed to a comparison, in some few particulars, 
of this with other books. Let us compare the great his- 
torian of the Pentateuch with all others. How free he is 
from all boasting as to himself or his countrymen ! He . 
candidly tells his own faults and shortcomings, and God's 
judgments on him for them. Instead of nattering his 
nation, he records their shameless conduct and God's ter- 
rible inflictions upon them. It was not for their number 
or their goodness that God loved them, he said. He loved 
them because he loved them, and intended some mighty 
work by them. Compare this with the boasting and ex- 
travagant histories of Herodotus and others. 

THE PROPHETIC BOOKS OF SCRIPTURE. 

While the gift of prophecy to some men, and a class of 
men called prophets, are recognized in every pagan system, 
showing the universal consent of mankind in their favor, 
what other book in the world has ventured on a long 

* The identity of the language of the Bible in some of its most important 
theological terms, with those used in the Oriental systems of philosophy and 
religion, deserves to be noticed. The true meaning and design of many pas- 
sages of scripture cannot be properly understood and felt, except as containing 
allusions to the language and doctrines of the Gnostics of the East. The terms 
light and darkness, the Word or Logos, the new birth or regeneration, the be- 
ing in Christ or in God, all have reference to the same phrases in the Eastern 
systems. In these systems they are connected with error; in the Christian 
system with truth. Christ is " the true Light." The new birth in Christ is by 
the power of the Spirit, not by the mysteries or the sacrifices. It was meet 
that the language of the Bible should be so far accommodated to the language 
of mythology and philosophy, as that each should cast some light on the other ; 
else would the scriptures be an unknown tongue to the heathen, and be unfit 
for their conversion. Whoever will read the scriptures and these ancient writ- 
ings, comparing them together, will be surprised and pleased at finding so 
many terms and figures and illustrations in common, affording mutual help to 
the right understanding of both parties. 



SUPERIORITY OF THE BIBLE. 



543 



series of prophecies like that -which, beginning with 
Noah, continues to St. John, a period of more than two 
thousand years, predicting events to occur, some of them 
in a comparatively short time, and others at a very long 
distance in the future ? What other hooks ventured to 
rest their truth and authority on the destruction of proud 
cities and the downfall of mighty kingdoms, and the dis- 
persion of such a nation through the earth, even to this 
day, as the Jewish people ? Where were there ever, ex- 
cept in Judea, such men as Moses, Daniel, Isaiah, who 
dared to stand up hefore the world and predict the dis- 
grace and desolation of Babylon, Nineveh, Jerusalem, 
and the passing away of the greatest monarchies of 
earth? Where is to be heard of such a prophet as St. 
John, who. in the Apocalyptic vision, looking through the 
long vista of ages to come, predicts events even to the 
end of the world, many of which have already occurred? 

THH DEVOTIONAL SCRIPTURES. 

Let the brief prayer taught by our Lord to his disciples, 
for their use and for that of his whole church, in all ages, 
be compared with all the prayers ever composed and used 
by philosopher- ami prit -ts of the pagan world. Nay, 
let the devotional psalms and hymns >>f Moses, David, 
and others, by which we make melody in our hearts to 
the Lord, be compared with the bombastic ami ridiculous 
addresses of Homer, lb-nod, and ( 'allimachus, to Jupiter 
Apollo, liacchu-, Venus. Diana, and others, and we shall 
have some idea of the infinite superiority of this depart- 
ment of the Bible. 

< oMi'AKATivi: \ n;w or imh.tkini:. 

What arc all the fanciful systems <>f the ZcndaveatSj 
the Vedas, the I'uranas of the Last, and of the philoso- 



544 THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 

pliers of Greece and Rome, compared with that set forth 
in the discourses of our Lord and the epistles of his apos- 
tles ? Our Lord's sermon on the mount has more of true 
divinity and morality than could be extracted by the most 
sifting process from all the sacred books of the whole 
world beside, 

THE ORDINANCES OP RELIGION. 

How shall we compare together the simple ordinance 
of baptism, in which parents and minister bring the little 
children to Christ, and with the sprinkling of pure water 
on their foreheads, place them, by faith, in his arms, en- 
couraged by his own act while on earth, with the horrid 
dedication of children to Moloch by the priests and pa- 
rents, who threw them into his burning arms and heard 
their piercing shrieks, and knew not but their souls were 
cast into a burning lake in Tartarus ? How shall we 
compare the simple and expressive sacrament of the body 
and blood of Christ, where a little bread and wine are 
used as signs, with the bloody sacrifices of the heathen, 
where the priest and the offerer bathe their hands and 
arms and faces in the blood of the innocent victims, and 
thus approach the altar of their gods, presenting some- 
times the fruit of their bodies, — their own children, — for 
the sin of their souls % How different the religion of David, 
who said, ""■ I will wash my hands in innocency, and so 
will I come to thine altar, O Lord." Who would com- 
pare with either of these celebrations, done in open day, 
and understood by all, the dark mysteries of the pagans, 
in deep forests or subterranean abodes, where the initiated 
were frightened with the most horrid rites and dismal 
groans, before being admitted to any thing that was cheer- 
ing and hopeful ? * 

* St. Paul, in more than one place, speaks of some " things done of them in 
secret," of which it is a shame even to speak. It is supposed that he alludes 



SUPERIORITY OF THE BIBLE. 



545 



THE SPIRIT OF THE TWO SYSTEMS. 

When the great author of all the idolatries of the world 
addressed his too successful temptation to our first parents, 
he said, " Ye shall he as gods" if ye only take my coun- 
sel and eat of this tree. Jlimself had fallen hy the same 
temptation. Amhition was the ruling principle of the 
heathen world. The gods (so called) set them the ex- 
ample, and were ever contending with each other for 
power. Even Homer, whose great poem is so well calcu- 
lated to stir up this principle in men, must needs rehuke 
the gods for its mischievous indulgence : 

" Yc gods, what havoc docs ambition make 
'Mong all your works ! " 

How different the spirit and conduct of our Lord, who 
said, " Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart " — 
who chose the form of a servant, calling himself " the 
servant of servants," whose great prototype, Moses, " was 
meek above all men upon earth,'' though none more val- 
iant for God and the truth. When our Lord came, he 
took little children into his arms, saying, "of such is the 
kingdom of heaven;" instead of encouraging amhition, 
and saying " Ye shall he as trod-,*' he declared that only 
those who hecame as little children should enter the king- 
to some things in the celebration of the mysteries, probably at a lutcr period, 
when they had become corrupted. Muny such things there were, in which 
even females participated, and w hich formed a purt of their philosophic system, 
with which I could not stain these pages. The use of the holy things in the 
worship of some of the deities well deserves to be called " ubominuble idola- 
tries." Kven as to the good which was taught in the mysteries, one says, " If 
the doctrioc of the unity wss taught in the mysteries, it was under a tremen- 
dous seal and oath of secrecy." It is even affirmed that, in some of them, 
certain persons employed in menial offices about the celebrations bare been 
put to death after the celebrations Wire o»cr, lest they should divulge the 
secret*. 

35 



546 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



dom of heaven. See how he rebuked every symptom of 
ambition which showed itself among his disciples, whether 
for earthly or heavenly superiority, saying, that those 
who would be greatest must become least,— that is, in 
spirit and temper. The poor in spirit, and the meek, 
were his favorites, and the blessed ones here and here- 
after. Humility, which has no word answering to it in 
the proud Roman tongue, was the grace in which he de- 
lighted, and which he exhibited in his whole life and 
character. How different the language of scripture from 
that of man, as to pride ! We often read of a noble pride, 
even now. In the time of the prophets, one said, " Be- 
hold, we call the proud happy," but he rebukes it, saying, 
" The proud, God knoweth afar off." There was a noted 
saying among the ancients, that " the noblest sight upon 
earth was that of a good man struggling with adversity, 
but unsubdued by it. On such a sight, even the gods 
looked down with admiration." But what saith the 
scripture: "To this man will I look, even to him that is 
poor and of a contrite spirit." " The sacrifices of God are a 
broken spirit." With such sacrifices God himself is well 
pleased. The object over which angels are said to re- 
joice is the repenting sinner. As to innocence and in- 
tegrity, of which men boast so much, one in Rome said of 
the honest Fabricius, " Sooner shall the sun be turned 
from its course, than thee, Fabricius, from the paths of 
honor." The scripture says of even the just man, that " he 
falleth seven times a day, but riseth again." The scrip- 
ture says, " God chargeth even his angels with folly." 
Epictetus said, "As to the body, thou art a small part of 
the universe ; but in respect of the mind or reason, neither 
more nor less than the gods. "Will you not, therefore, 
place your good there, where you are equal to the gods ? " 
Instead of these proud imaginations, we should always 
conceive of heaven as a place, not for warriors and mighty 



SUPERIORITY OF THE BIBLE. 



547 



men and proud spirits, who might again rebel and war, 
but for humble spirits which have been chastened and 
subdued, and continued in meekness. 



DIFFERENCE OF THE SYSTEMS AS TO REVEXGE AND FOR- 
GIVENESS OF INJURIES. 

In nothing does paganism and Christianity more differ 
than in this. Milton has described the former in two 
words, " Lust hard by hate." Revenge was and is the 
deepest and worst feeling in the human heart. Christi- 
anity sets itself entirely against it. We are not permitted 
even to ask forgiveness of God, except on the condition of 
forgiving others. We must love, not only our friends, but 
our enemies ; do good to them who seek to do evil unto 
us; overcome evil with good; forgive, not seven times 
only, but seventy times seven, — that is, as often as it is 
asked. Some have thought that the imprecatory Psalms 
of David are inconsistent with this feature of our religion, 
and say we should hate the sin ami love the sinner; to 
which it is replied, " that when sin and the sinner are 
finally committed to each other, both (tod and man must 
root them out together; that man due- not hang murder, 
but the murderers; that (ioddoes not turn wickedness, 
but the wicked into hell.* In the Psalms we have an 
account of (iod's fearful punishment of idolatry, as the 
worst of crimes — the highest rebellion again.-t himself. 

If we turn to the pagan- we may indeed find here and 
there some good sayings on this -ulijcet. but intermingled 
with those of a different character. In limner we find 
the pious old Hecuba thirsting to wash her hands in the 
blood of Achilles. 



• See the Hcv. Mr. Krnuth'n ncrmon. 



548 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



Hesiod says, 

" Who loves thee, love : him woo, who friendly woos :" — 

but, even as to a brother, 

" If he, the first, by word or deed offend, 
Doubly thy just resentment may descend." 

Let the thirteenth chapter of the Second Epistle of St. 
Paul to the Corinthians, on charity, be read, and in it will 
be found more and better on this subject than is contained 
in all the books of the pagans. 

COMPARATIVE VIEW OF THE SCRIPTURE, ON THE SUBJECT OF 
TEMPERANCE, WITH THAT OF OTHERS. 

St. Paul advises a little wine to Timothy for his often 
infirmities, and the scriptures are full of warning against 
excess, and regard it as sometimes expedient neither to 
touch, taste, or handle it. They condemn the doctrine of 
Epicurus, " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." 
Among the Egyptians, from whom this motto of Epicurus 
was borrowed, there was a custom, at their entertainments, 
to have carried about the image of a corpse in a coffin, 
with some words to this effect : " Enjoy yourselves now, 
for you will soon be as this corpse." Among the ancients 
there were prizes for those who could drink most. Alex- 
ander the'Great was celebrated for his ability, but died a 
victim to it at last. Theognis the poet, being at a feast, 
thus describes his condition and opinion : 

" I shall retire, (the rule, I think, is right,) 
Not absolutely drunk, nor sober quite." 

Horace speaks of various poets who excelled by reason 
of the inspiration of wine, as Homer, Ennius, etc. 

Even Plato allowed drunkenness on a feast of Bacchus. 



SUPERIORITY OF THE BIBLE. 



549 



Solomon, on the contrary, advises — "When thou sittest at 
a feast w ith a ruler, put thy knife to thy throat, if thou be 
a man given to appetite ;" and St. Paul felt that even he 
" must keep under his body." 

Christianity teaches that " every creature of God is 
good, and to be used with thanksgiving" and in modera- 
tion. It is entirely opposed to the religion of penances, 
as substituted for that of faith, love, and good works. 
"We are no Brahmins, (said Tertullian,) dwellers in the 
woods, estranged from the affairs of life. We are temper- 
ate, and learn to use without abusing." 



DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE EFFECTS OK TIIK TWO SYSTEMS 
EN THE TIME OF TROUBLE AM) DISAl'1'OlNTMLNT. 

When Job Mas bereaved of all his possessions, he said, 
"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;" but his 
wife wished him to curse God, and die. Here was the 
difference, even in that day, between the servants of the 
true God ami others. We have also instances, in Homer, 
Virgil, and others, of blasphemy toward their gods. He- 
rodotus tells us of a nation, the Gieta, who, when it thun- 
dered and lightened, would .-hoot their arrows against the 
sky, and utter threats against their god. As to the phi- 
losophers, when trouble came too heavily upon them they 
committed niieide. Thus did Brutus at I'hilippi. Thus 
the jailer would have done at the same plaee, had not 
Paul cried "lit to him. " I )o th \ -elf no harm," ami preached 
to him the gospel of salvation. I might extend this com- 
parison to many other thing.-, as for instance, to the moral 
law, a- -< t forth under Mo-es and explained by our Lord, 
and to the estimate of woman among the heathen and 
among Christians ; but I content myself with a brief refer- 
ence to the different effects of Christianity and paganism 



550 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



on the mind of man, in the hour of death and in view of 
eternity.* 

St. Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews, speaking gener- 
ally, represents men as " through fear of death being, all 
their lifetime, subject to bondage." From this, Christ 
came to deliver us. However boastfully some men may 
speak, death has ever been the "king of terrors." There 
is a " bitterness in death." The remembrance of it is 
bitter to him who is unprepared. And to all men it is a 
solemn thing to die, for death is the wages of sin, appoint- 
ed and required by God himself. To the unbelieving 
heathen it must have ever been a bitter draft. Cicero 
says of Epicurus, " Never was a school-boy more afraid 
of a rod, or an enemy of his conqueror, than he was of 
death." Well might they shudder on the brink of eter- 
nity when making the fearful leap, not knowing where they 
would land ; whether they would find themselves in the 
body of another man, or of a toad, or an elephant, or in 
Hades, or in which part of Hades, whether Elysium or 
Tartarus, or wandering around it, wretched ghosts be- 
cause their bodies were unburied, or be annihilated or 
lost in the deity. " Incertus morior" — I die uncertain 
what is to become of me, was the highest consolation of 
the pagan. 

How different the case of the true Christian : to die is 
gain to him, for it is to be with Christ. Instead of wan- 
dering about for thousands of years, an empty, wretched 

* Dean Trench says — " Before Christ, men could speak worthy things and 
really feel them, about the beauty of overcoming their desires and forgiving 
their enemies, of repaying injuries with kindness, of coming to God with clean 
hands and a clean heart. Such sayings abound in their code of morals; but the 
unhappiness was, that they who uttered these sayings and they who admired 
them, did little more than this. There was a great gulf between the saying 
and the doing. It was reserved for the Christian to say, " Non eloquimur mag- 
na, sed vivimus." By mistake, in the early ages, the disciples of Christ were 
sometimes called " Christians," that is, doers of good, so active were they in 
all good works. 



SUPERIORITY OF THE BIBLE. 



551 



shade, lie shall be, on the very day of his death, with 
Christ in Paradise, in a state of blessedness. His life is 
already hid with Christ in God. Precious indeed in the 
sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Blessed are 
the dead who die in the Lord. The Christian alone can 
say, "O death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy 
victory ! Thanks be to Cod, who giveth us the victory 
through Jesus Christ our Lord." Only compare together 
the death of Socrates, declaring to his mourning friends 
that he was going, he knew not whither, and whether it 
would l>e better or worse with him the gods only could 
tell ; or the last moments of the infidel Hume, playing 
cards with his friends, and jesting about Charon and his 
ferryboat, — with the dying testimony of St Paul in refer- 
ence to his martyrdom : " I am now ready to be offered, 
and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought 
;i good fight ; I have finished my course; I have kept the 
faith ; henceforth there is laid up tor me a i-rown of right- 
eousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give 
me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them 
also who wait his appearing." In relation to all the seem- 
ing confidence of irreligious death-beds, we may 6ay, in 
the words of Dr. Voung in his Night Thoughts :" 

" Whatever farce the lsiastful hero plays, 
Virtue alone has majesty in death." 

Put by virtue we must understand the true love of God, 
and thus did he mean it 

" Talk they morals ? < ) thou (deeding Love, 
Thou inakcT of new morals to mankind. 
The grand morality is love of tliec. 
As wise as Socrates, if tOCfa they were ; 
(Nor will they hate of that suhlime renown,; 
As wise as Somites, might justly stand 
The definition of a modem fx)L" 



CHAPTEE XL. 



CONCLUDING KEMAEKS. 



A book, like a sermon, should conclude with an applica- 
tion. I trust that what has been adduced in proof of a 
universal admission of some great principles and facts in 
religion, coming down to us from the earliest ages through 
various numerous channels, has not been without its effect 
as an antidote to infidelity.' But for the most part the 
contest has not been with the denial of any God, or of all 
religion, but with the corruptions of it. One of the an- 
cients says, " Deos esse nemo negat, quales sint varium- 
est." There is a principle in these words which we may 
apply to our subject. That the great God gave man relig- 
ion at the first all admit, but what it was has divided the 
world. The learned Cudworth says, " The pagans agreed 
in two things ; first, in breaking and crumbling the Deity 
into many gods; second, in deifying all things." Hence all 
the corruptions of original truth. Against these corrup- 
tions, which of necessity must have been by little and little, 
God has doubtless, by his spirit and prophets, been ever 
protesting, before and since the flood. "Without undertak- 
ing to determine what he has done in other countries, in 
the earlier ages, we have a most clear and particular ac- 
count of his dealings with a chosen people. The sum- 
ming up the history of these dealings as a warning against 
any perversion of religion on our part, will form the appli- 
cation of our subject. The Bible throughout "is full of 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



553 



warnings against things which to some appear trivial. St. 
John says, M Little children, keep yourselves from idols," — 
that is, images of the no-gods of the heathen, which filled 
their houses and temples. God himself had, from Mount 
Sinai, said, ''Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven 
image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, 
or that is in the earth heneath, or that is in the water un- 
der the earth. Thou shalt nut how down to them, nor 
serve them." All such idols or images ahounded in that 
day, and increased afterward. If they were not worship- 
ped as gods themselves, yet the gods were supposed to 
he in them or with them. If the doctrine of transnbstan- 
tiation was not held in relation to them, that of consub- 
stantiation certainly was, and we are assured hy various 
ancient writers that the worship paid to them was as to 
gods themselves. In order to extirpate this superstition, 
God not only forbids the making of them, hut orders those 
who made them to he put to death. The whole history of 
God's dealings with the Jewish nation is one of heavy 
judgments on those who gave any countenance to such 
things. Many of the special statutes for Israel, Bitch as 
forbidding mixed garments, sowing divers seeds, etc., in 
which no morality is concerned, can only he understood 
as designed to keep the chosen people as far as possible 
from any practices which might familiarize and identify 
them with idolatrous nations and customs. Evil commu- 
nications corrupt good manners, and he that despiscth lit- 
tle things shall fall hy little and little, were as true of tho 
corruptions of religion as of anything else. 

" Ha> nugm swpc in scria ducunt" — 

" These trifles ofl to serious matters lead" — 

is the history of tho rise ami progress of idolatry in all its 
forms. One of the defender* of the Information (Calfhill) 



554 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



says, " Such is the vilest persuasion of error, such is the 
force of superstition, that whenever occasion is ministered, 
our corrupt nature inclineth to it." The tendency to the un- 
due veneration of men, — our ancestors especially, — was the 
source of image or idol worship, and with these images 
those ancestors were soon identified. Mr. Harcourt, in his 
learned work on the Deluge, says the laws of Menu recog- 
nized eight guardian deities of the world. "And that these 
were in truth the ark-preserved family is evident enough, 
both because two of their names, Soma and Zoma, are with 
very little variation the same as Shem and Ham, whose 
posterity peopled Asia, and because one of the duties of 
their religion, described by a Brahmin, is the pouring out 
drink-offerings every day to the eight progenitors of man- 
kind. These eight progenitors were also the earliest gods 
of the Egyptians." That such is the tendency of human 
nature, not only the Jewish and other ancient nations tes- 
tify, but the history of the Christian church too fully 
proves. Even in the apostle's days it was difficult to keep 
hero-worship — the doctrine of devils — out of the church ; 
and how soon after do we find it showing itself in the an- 
niversaries of the saints, after the manner of the pagans. 
"What but this is the great corruption of the Romish 
church ? It has been well said, that " If the Romanists, 
under the full blaze of Christianity, can pay such homage 
to the Virgin Mary, and rely so much on the saints, making 
them tutelary deities, actually spending more time on them 
than in the worship of God the Father, is it to be wondered at 
that the heathen should have departed from the worship of 
the true God, or mingled it with that of lesser deities, or 
that the Jews should have mingled the worship of Jehovah 
with that of the hero-gods ?" The homage paid to shrines 
and relics grew up in like manner among pagans, Jews, 
and Christians. It lias, therefore, ever been the belief 
that there was design in the manner and place of Moses' 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



555 



death and burial. It is written, that the Lord buried 
Mm " in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor : but no 
man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." Had it been 
known, how probable that some improper homage would 
have been paid to it,as to the supposed sepulchre of Jupi- 
ter in Crete, and of other gods in ofher places !* 

* A very interesting work Las recently been published by William Buckhardt 
Barker, (who was many years resident at Tarsus, in Asia, as an ollicer of the 
British Government,; entitled "Lares and Penates; or, Cilesia and its Gov- 
ernors," in which the reader may find much that is worthy of his notice. Tar- 
sus was the place of St. Paul's birth, and tradition says, of Daniel's burial. It 
was, on many accuunts, " no mean city," whether sacred or profane history 
bears testimony. It was, at first, called Tarshish, a name belonging to other 
commercial places in the ancient world. It was situated on the celebrated river 
Cvdnus, in which Alexander, when bathing, nearly lost his life. It empties 
into the Mediterranean. While resident at Tarsus, Mr. Barker collected a large 
store of the tcrra-cotta images of the ancient deities,— the household and coun- 
try gods, " the Lares and Penates," — paying a great price for them to persons 
who made it their business to dig them from the ruins of the city. Discover- 
ing the pluce where one of these men was wont to get them, Mr. Barker em- 
ployed a number of hands, and opened a mound which had been funned of the 
alluvial soil from the surrounding hills, against the tottering walls which en- 
close the city, and there found a huge pile of them, some in fragments, many 
entire. Mure than a thousand of them arc now in the British Museum, and the 
pictures adorn his book. Mr. Barker gives his views of the Lares and Penates, 
as follows : "Though both were considered as household gods, the Lares were, 
more exclusively, being derived, according to Apulius, from lar-fumiliaris, — 
belonging to a family. They were sometimes confounded with the souls of de- 
ceased [i.-i-r.ii* w|,.. l,u,| li'.ed u.-ll — who hail lived badly were called 
Larva-, or Lemures, and were regarded as vagabonds, wandering about and 
frightening people. The good were the guardian angels of families, and were 
represented by little images of ware, — terra-eotta, or other materials. The pc- 
natcs were also household gods, and these were called the lesser penates. They 
also presided over cities, and sonic over empires, having the special guardian- 
ship of tbeir favorites." 

Mr. Bryant derives tin- name L ip s from Laren, an anrient word by which 
the ark was represented, and says that the Klrurtans and Latins held them to 
bo the " Dei Arkita?," — that is, their nrkile ancestors who became their house- 
hold deities. It should also bo observed that the pagans would select any of 
the gods >>r goddesses to be their tutelary deities, whether Jupiter, Apollo, or 
others. N'u doubt tin-so household deities were in use at an early period, and 
may have been tin- sumo up >ki-n of in the family of Jacob, and the same refer- 
red In by Mines, where the setting up of idols in the secret corners of the houso 
is forbidden. Cicero derives the word penates from penetrulis, the inmost recess 
of the house. It is thought that this huge pile of images without the walls of 



556 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



At the time of the Reformation, the subject of saint- 
worship and its connection with the idol or image-wor- 
ship of the heathen was fully discussed. In the book of 
Homilies of the English church, composed by Cranmer and 
other reformers, there are three sermons on the peril of 
idolatry, in which the ground is taken that all pictures and 
images in churches are contrary to the spirit of the second 
commandment, that eidolon in Greek, imago and simula- 
crum in latin, are to be translated idols or images. Ter- 
tullian is quoted as translating St. John's words, " Beware 
of idols," "beware of images." Moses is quoted as em- 
phatically declaring that the people at Sinai and elsewhere 
" Heard only the voice of the Lord, but saw no similitude 
— no manner of similitude," and therefore warned against 
any image or any thing in heaven, or earth, or under the 
earth, saying, " Cursed be the man that maketh any such 
image, and setteth it up in a secret corner," thus forbid- 
ding even the private use of it. Origen is quoted as say- 
ing, " It is not only a mad and frantic thing to worship 
images, but also once to dissemble or wink at it." 
St. Augustine says, " Images be of more force to crook 
an unhappy soul, than to teach and instruct." The case 
of Epiphanius is mentioned, who, in the time of Theodo- 
sius, entered into a certain temple to pray, and found 
there a linen painted cloth on the door, having on it the 
image of Christ or of some other saint. Considering it 
contrary to the scriptures, he tore it down, and directed 
the keeper of the church to make a winding-sheet of it for 
a poor man who was dead, and to bury him in it, — order- 
ing that no more like it be used in the church. St. Je- 
rome and others praised him highly for this act. 

St. Jerome and Eusebius agree that the introduction of 

Tarsus, may have been the result of the zeal of the converts to Christianity, in 
one of the visits of St. Paul to this place, when stirred up by his preaching, which 
led them to carry their idols and images, and cast them outside the city. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 557 

the use of images and pictures was of Gentile converts, 
who were not thoroughly purged of some remnants of 
idolatry ; that, at first, they were not used in churches, 
but afterward crept into them out of private houses, and 
so bred first superstition, and afterward idolatry. At 
length, as the darker ages came on, images and pictures 
were more and more used, though some godly bishops and 
rulers would, from time to time, cause them to be removed, 
and also from private houses. The homily makes a dis- 
tinction between these and the pictures, images, and stat- 
ues of men and other objects, which are taken and used 
for the purpose of preserving the recollection of the same, 
and where there is not the least design or probability of 
their being turned into superstition, but condemns the 
introduction even of them into temples of religion, lest 
they minister to undue veneration, and thus promote idol- 
atry or image worship. 

The reformers felt it their duty also to protest against 
the superstitious regard paid to the sign of the cross. One 
whole volume, octavo, is filled with an account of its 
abuses by the Romanists, and with warnings against the 
same. On these and on all other subjects it becomes us 
to beware of the first beginnings of error, to meet them 
at the door, in their first stealthy approaches. Let us fear 
the Bemi-paganism of Rome and the seini-Romanism of 
some Protestants, remembering how " facilis descensus 
A \ erni." 

To conclude. While we -till adhere to the conviction that 
the warnings against idols, 1>\ St. John, St. Paul, and oth- 
ers, are to he literal lv understood as warnings against any 
return unto, or connivances :t t, some of the forms of pa- 
ganism, we are far from restricting those- and other pas- 
sages to such literal application. We may be, to the ruin 
of our immortal souls, guilty of spiritual idolatry in many 
other ways. Whatever we love and seek, and rely upon 



558 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 



more than on God, becomes an idol or god to us. By 
seeking riches immoderately, we worship Mammon ; for 
covetousness is idolatry. Those who addict themselves to 
lusts and pleasures, are the sons and worshippers of Belial. 
Philosophers who passionately devote themselves to as- 
tronomy, neglecting the God who is above the heavens, 
worship the heavenly bodies. The blood thirsty, who de- 
light in war, worship Mars. Those who give themselves 
up to music, without making melody in their hearts to 
the Lord, worship Apollo. Those who delight themselves 
in the idle poetry of human genius, more than in the 
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs of scripture, wor- 
ship the Muses. Those who devote themselves to the su- 
perficial accomplishments of the person more than to the 
solid virtues of the mind, worship the Graces. Those 
who give loose to the angry passions of the soul, worship 
the Furies. Those whose highest aim is the cultiva- 
tion and attainment of eloquence, worship Mercury. 
Those who surrender up themselves to mere human love, 
worship Venus. Those who are ravished with their own 
beauty, as Narcissus in the lake, worship themselves. 
Those who value and pride themselves chiefly on their 
personal strength, worship Hercules. Those who aim at 
empire, worship Jupiter. Those who admire all the ob- 
jects in creation, all the beasts of the field and fowls of the 
air, without looking through nature up to nature's God, 
worship Pan — are pantheists. To these, and all others 
who in their hearts delight in any of the things of this 
world more than in Him who made, redeemed, and sanc- 
tifies man, we say, "Little children, keep yourselves from 
idols." 



APit. 15.1361. 



E I Mi A T A 



PAGE. 


LINK. 




PAGE. 


LIN E. 


u . 


. 14 . 


Hone for Ilosa. 


445 . 


. 21 


180 . 


. 30 . 


Though after and. 


It 


. 28 


159 . 


. 80 . 


War for roar. 




. 23 


168 . 


. 14 . 


Above for upon. 


It 


27 


174 . 


. 211 . 


Known for human. 


452 


. 17 


17'J . 


. 21 . 


. Krom lor for. 


455 . 


. 18 


208 


. 10 . 


. Then for here. 


490 . 


. 28 


275 . 


. T, . 


. Sixth for ninth. 


481 . 


. 14 


335 


. 12 . 


. Copan for ecpar. 




. 15 


640 . 


. 13 . 


. Weary for very. 


482 


. 8 


855 . 


. « . 


. 548 for 448. 


484 


. 17 


482 




. 711 for 911. 




. 1 


485 


. 14 . 


. Qua for qua;. 


501 


. 80 


44 


. 24 . 


. Kursus for nusiis. 


532 


. 28 


t* 


. 27 . 


. Pignon lor pignova. 


551 


.. 28 


u 


. 30 . 


. Vivo for viro. 


504 


. 1 


444 


. 27 . 


. ImiiiPinor for immenor. 







Verba far verbam. 
-Ere for Mo. 
Titnebant for tinebant 
Sine for sive. 
Decrant for (levant. 
I. ami lor laud. 
Vetituui for vebitum. 
Propositi for proposito. 
Civium for civirum. 
Coiupesce for conipesse. 
flic for hoc. 
Xuhes for nuhus. 
Mars for Moloch. 
And after Athenians. 
Lamb for love. 
Common for vilest. 



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Sorrowing, Yet Reioicing, ... 80 The Genu s or Scotland. Uroo, .100 

7 



CARTERS' PUBLICATIONS. 



Tyng, S. H., D.D. 

Law and the Gospel, . . . . . 1 00 

Tub Iskael of God, 1 00 

Christ is All. 12uio, . . . . 1 00 

The Kicii Kinsman, 1 00 

The Captive Orphan, . . . . 1 00 
Recollections op England, ... 75 
Christian Titles. 16mo, .... 75 

A La.MU FROM THE FLOCK, .... 25 

Tyng, Rev. Dudley A. 

The Children of the Kingdom. 18mo, . 50 

Uncle Jack, the Fault Killer, . . 30 

Unica ; A Tale for Gills, .... 25 

Voice of Christian Life in Song, . T5 

Vara ; Or, The Child of Adoption, . . 1 00 

Very Little Tales 

For Very Little Children. In larpce 
type. First and Second Series. 2 vols., 75 

Wardlaw on Miracles, 75 

Warfare and Work. A Tale, . . 50 

Watson, Thomas. 

The Select Works of Thomas "Watson, 
Including Lis " Body of Divinity," . .2 00 

Watts' Divine and Moral Songs, . . 40 
Way Home, The so 

Whately, Bishop. 

The Kingdom of Christ and Errors of 
Komanism, 75 

Week, The, 50 

Wells, Rev. J. D. 

The Last Week in the Life of Davis 
Johnson, Jr. 16tno, .... 60 

Whitecross, John. 

Anecdotes on Assembly's Catechism, . 30 



White, Rev. Hugh. 

Meditations and Addresses on Prayer, 40 
The Believer. A Series of Discourses, . 40 
Beflsctiqks on the Second Advent, . 40 

Wightman, Mrs. 

Haste to the Rescue, . . . .50 
Annals of the Rescued, ■ . .75 

Wilberforce, William. 

Memoir of, 50 

Practical View. 12hio, . . . . 1 00 

Willie and Unica, 50 

Wilson, John. 

Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life, . 75 
Willison, John. 

Sacramental Meditations and Advices, 50 
The Communicant's Catechism. Per doz., 75 

Win and Wear. 

A Story for Boys. By an American Lady, 50 

Winslow, Octavius. 

Midnight Harmonies, .... 60 
Declension and Eevival, . ... 60 
TnE Precious Things of God, ... 75 
Memoir of Mary Winslow, . . . 1 00 

Help Heavenward, 50 

The Emotional Nature of Christ, . . 

Woodruff's SnADES of Character, . . 1 00 
Workmen and their Difficulties. 

By the author of" Bagged Homes," etc., . 

Wylie, Rev. J. A. 

A Journey over Fulfilled Prophecy-, . SO 

Young, Edward. 

Night Thoughts. Laree type. 16mo, . 75 
Small edition. Close type. 18mo, . . 40 

Young, John, M.A. 

The Christ of History 75 

The Province of Reason, . . . .75 



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